Core Web Vitals

Definitions

1. A set of three user-centric performance metrics defined by Google that measure loading speed (Largest Contentful Paint), interactivity (Interaction to Next Paint), and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift). Core Web Vitals became a Google search ranking factor in 2021, forcing the entire web development industry to care about performance whether they wanted to or not.

   In plain English: Three specific measurements Google uses to judge how fast and smooth your website feels — they affect your search ranking, so everyone has to care about them now.

   Example: Our SEO team is losing their minds over Core Web Vitals — the hero image causes a bad LCP score and the cookie banner triggers a terrible CLS.

Related Terms

• Accessibility
• Responsive Design
• SEO
• lazy loading
• code splitting
• tree shaking
• Core Web Vitals
• Memory Budget
• Server-Side Rendering
• Template Engine
• URL Rewriting
• Web Vitals
• Time to First Byte Culture
• Lighthouse Score Obsession