What is Core Web Vitals?
SEO Definition and Examples
Core Web Vitals are 3 technical Google metrics — LCP, INP and CLS — that measure page user experience and have been official ranking factors since 2021.
Full Definition: What is Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are 3 metrics defined by Google to measure the user experience of a web page: (1) LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — how long the largest visual element takes to load, ideally under 2.5s; (2) INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — how fast the page responds to interactions, ideally under 200ms; (3) CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — how much elements move visually while the page loads, ideally under 0.1. They are measured with Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console.
Why Does Core Web Vitals Matter for SEO?
Google has confirmed that Core Web Vitals have been ranking factors since May 2021. Pages with "Poor" scores on LCP or INP are at a disadvantage in the SERP against competitors with "Good" scores. Especially on mobile, which accounts for 65% of web traffic in Romania.
Source: Google — Core Web VitalsFrequently Asked Questions about Core Web Vitals
Related Terms
Technical SEO
AdvancedTechnical SEO covers your site's infrastructure — crawlability, indexing, loading speed, HTTPS and data structure — that lets Google find and understand pages.
Crawlability
IntermediateCrawlability is the ability of Google's robots to access, navigate and read your site's pages — an essential prerequisite for indexing and ranking.
XML Sitemap
BeginnerAn XML sitemap is a file that lists all the important URLs of your site, helping Google discover and index them faster and more completely.
Robots.txt
IntermediateRobots.txt is a text file placed at the root of a site that tells crawlers (Google, Bing, GPTBot) which pages they may or may not access and index.
Put Core Web Vitals into practice
Explore how to apply this concept to your industry and city.
