Remember when you clicked on a website and waited... and waited... and then just gave up? Yeah, we've all been there. That frustration you felt? Google noticed it too. That's why they decided to make page speed and something called Core Web Vitals part of their ranking game.
Here's the deal: your website's speed isn't just about keeping visitors happy anymore (though that's huge). It's actually affecting where you show up in search results. Let's break down what's really going on.
What Are Core Web Vitals Anyway?
Think of Core Web Vitals as Google's report card for how real people experience your website. Google introduced these as metrics measuring real-world user experience for loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.
There are three main measurements Google cares about:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for your main content to show up. To provide a good user experience, strive to have LCP occur within the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load. This is basically the "hero" moment when your biggest image or text block appears.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) tracks how quickly your site responds when someone clicks or taps something. To provide a good user experience, strive to have an INP of less than 200 milliseconds. This replaced an older metric called First Input Delay in 2024, giving a more complete picture of responsiveness.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability. Ever tried clicking a button, but right before you tap it, the page shifts and you hit an ad instead? Annoying, right? To provide a good user experience, strive to have a CLS score of less than 0.1.
Do They Actually Affect Your Rankings?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: it's complicated (but not that complicated).
Google has confirmed that page experience signals, including Core Web Vitals, are a ranking factor. But before you panic and spend your entire budget on speed optimisation, here's what you need to know.
Google's John Mueller put it plainly: relevance is still by far much more important, so just because your website is faster with regard to Core Web Vitals than some competitors doesn't necessarily mean that you will jump to position number one in the search results.
Think of it this way: Core Web Vitals are like the tiebreaker in a close game. Google can use Core Web Vitals as a "tie-breaker" between pages with similar content quality—so if your page and a competitor's page both thoroughly address the same query, and your page has better Core Web Vitals scores, you're more likely to rank higher.
The data backs this up. According to recent data, pages ranking at position 1 are 10% more likely to pass Core Web Vitals scores than URLs at position 9. That's not a massive difference, but it's enough to matter.
The Real Impact: Your Bottom Line
Here's where things get interesting. While Core Web Vitals might not catapult you to position one overnight, they have a direct impact on something more important: your conversion rates.
The numbers are pretty wild. 47% of customers expect a webpage to load in 2 seconds or less. Miss that mark, and you're already fighting an uphill battle.
A collaborative research with Google showed that a mere 0.1s improvement in load time can lead to a 10.1% increase in conversions in the travel industry, an 8.4% increase in eCommerce, and a 3.6% increase in the luxury sector.
Even small improvements add up. Mobify found that each 100ms improvement in their homepage's load time resulted in a 1.11% increase in conversion. That might sound tiny, but do the math on your annual revenue. For a site making $10 million yearly, even a 2% conversion boost from faster load times means an extra $200,000.
The flip side is equally dramatic. A 1-second delay in page load time can cause conversion rates to drop by 7%. And here's the kicker: 79% of shoppers who have trouble with site performance say they won't return to the site to buy again.
Mobile Is Where It Really Counts
If you think desktop performance is what matters most, think again. Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means your mobile scores are what count for rankings.
The challenge? Mobile is tougher. You're dealing with slower processors, limited memory, and unreliable networks. As of July 2025, only 44% of WordPress sites on mobile devices pass all three Core Web Vitals tests.
But this is actually good news. If more than half of websites are failing, fixing yours gives you a competitive advantage.
What Actually Needs to Happen
To get the ranking boost Google offers, 75% of users need to have a "Good" experience on your website across all three Core Web Vitals metrics. Google uses real user data from Chrome browsers to measure this, not just lab tests.
This is important: your Lighthouse score in PageSpeed Insights doesn't directly affect rankings. Google does not consider your Lighthouse score in any way for search ranking. What matters is how real people actually experience your site.
The Gradual Reality
Here's something they don't always tell you: improvements don't happen overnight. Sites with exceptional Core Web Vitals scores see gradual ranking improvements over several months.
Think of it as compound interest for your website. Small, consistent improvements build up over time. You might not see dramatic changes next week, but over months, the impact becomes significant.
Beyond Just Rankings
The beauty of optimizing for Core Web Vitals is that you're not just chasing algorithm points. You're actually making your site better for real people.
Better speeds mean lower bounce rates, longer session times, and more engaged visitors. These user signals feed back into Google's algorithms in indirect ways. A site that loads fast and feels smooth naturally earns more backlinks, gets shared more often, and builds stronger brand loyalty.
Plus, there's the simple fact that happy visitors convert better. They stick around longer, explore more pages, and are more likely to complete purchases or fill out forms.
Should You Obsess Over It?
Not obsess, but definitely care. Core Web Vitals affect SEO as part of Google's page experience signals; they are not the strongest ranking factor compared to content relevance and usefulness.
Focus on content quality first. Make sure you're actually answering what people are searching for. Then optimise your Core Web Vitals to give yourself an edge over competitors who are equally relevant.
The sweet spot is achieving "good" scores across all three metrics. Going from poor to good makes a noticeable difference. But obsessing over making a "good" score "perfect" probably won't move the needle much.
The Bottom Line
Page speed and Core Web Vitals do affect your rankings, but they're part of a bigger picture. They won't save terrible content, but they can give great content the boost it deserves.
More importantly, they directly impact your business metrics—conversion rates, revenue, and customer satisfaction. In competitive industries where everyone has similar content quality, that extra speed advantage can be the difference between page one and page two.
The real question isn't whether you should care about Core Web Vitals. It's whether you can afford not to. With more than half of websites still failing these basic performance standards, fixing yours isn't just about pleasing Google. It's about not leaving money on the table.
Start with the basics: optimize images, minimize unnecessary scripts, and fix layout shifts. Then measure, improve, and measure again. Your visitors (and your bottom line) will thank you.
Sources: Google Search Central Documentation, DebugBear, MonsterInsights, Cloudflare, NitroPack, Huckabuy
Top comments (1)
Spot on. The shift to real user data (CrUX) over Lighthouse lab scores is something many SEOs still miss. We’re seeing a similar pattern with the upcoming X (Twitter) algorithm update — it’s moving away from vanity metrics toward 'dwell time' and 'retention' which are heavily impacted by how smooth the experience feels on mobile. I’ve been building X-AlgoVision Pro on GitHub to simulate these exact engagement weights before the Musk code leak. Mobile performance is literally the foundation for organic reach now, whether it's Google or social feeds.