Google introduced the so-called Core Web Vitals. These are key figures that evaluate the user experience of a website. Core Web Vitals ranking signals will be rolled out starting May 2021.
We show which metrics site owners need to evaluate now and what impact they have on ranking and SEO. With the Core Web Vitals there is now another task for SEOs in OnPage optimization.
What are Core Web Vitals?
With Core Web Vitals, Google provides consistent quality signals that reflect the user experience on a web page. In other words, site operators can use the metrics to rank and evaluate the user experience of a website. At its core, this is about the loading process of a page, the interactivity on a page and the visual stability of a page.
Google introduces these metrics for this purpose:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This metric measures the amount of time it takes for the main content of a page to load. The search engine specifies 2.5 seconds or faster as the ideal value.
First Input Delay (FID): FID measures the time from when a user first interacts with a page (i.e., when they click a link, tap a button, or use a custom JavaScript-driven control) to when the browser can respond to that interaction.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): The CLS metric measures how stable the layout of a web page is and whether individual layout elements shift during use. Google specifies 0.1 or lower as the ideal value.
Google plans to expand and add to the metrics that make up Core Web Vitals in the future. At the same time, the values should not be set in stone. If the user’s expectations of the experience on a website change, the search engine wants to adjust the metrics accordingly.