Do you plan to work on improving your Core Web Vitals?

[MichaelCorfman]

Last Thursday, May 28th, Google made the following post in the Google Webmaster Central Blog:

Evaluating page experience for a better web.

Google announced that the speed report in Google Search Console has been replaced with a Core Vitals Report. It defines Core Web Vitals as “the subset of Web Vitals that apply to all web pages, should be measured by all site owners, and will be surfaced across all Google tools. Each of the Core Web Vitals represents a distinct facet of the user experience, is measurable in the field, and reflects the real-world experience of a critical user-centric outcome.”

The new search console report focuses on a core set of three web vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): measures loading performance and Google views that LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when a page first starts loading to provide a good user experience.
• First Input Delay (FID): measures interactivity and Google views that a page should have a FID of less than 100 milliseconds to provide a good user experience.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures visual stability and Google views that a page should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1 to provide a good user experience.

For more information, take a look at the following Google document: Core Web Vitals Report.

As Google says in its blog post:

We're combining the signals derived from Core Web Vitals with our existing Search signals for page experience, including mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines, to provide a holistic picture of page experience. Because we continue to work on identifying and measuring aspects of page experience, we plan to incorporate more page experience signals on a yearly basis to both further align with evolving user expectations and increase the aspects of user experience that we can measure.

We believe user engagement will improve as experiences on the web get better -- and that by incorporating these new signals into Search, we'll help make the web better for everyone. We hope that sharing our roadmap for the page experience updates and launching supporting tools ahead of time will help the diverse ecosystem of web creators, developers, and businesses to improve and deliver more delightful user experiences.

While all of the components of page experience are important, we will prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar. A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.

I know I'm going to be looking carefully at these new metrics and plan to have us undertake to improve our sites based on the feedback they provide.

For the GPWA.org website on a desktop, the Core Web Vitals report currently shows:

1,445 poor URLs with an LCP longer than 4 seconds
544 URLs that need improvement with an LCP longer than 2.5 seconds
2,648 good URLs.

Google did not report any FID or CLS issues for the GPWA website when used on a desktop.

For the GPWA.org website on a mobile device, the Core Web Vitals report currently shows:

1,404 poor URLs with an LCP longer than 4 seconds
2,523 URLs that need improvement with an LCP longer than 2.5 seconds
2,523 URLs that need improvement with a FID longer than 100ms.
0 Good URLs.

Besides voting in the poll, I invite you to share what the report says about your websites, and what you think about the new report and the roadmap Google has laid out.

Michael

[ddm]

YES! These reports are a godsend.

One big site I work with got spanked hard in organics for 5 days because of a UX glitch which was affecting our CLS BADLY (Cumulative Layout Shift) ..
these new reports are golden. as soon as google announced this stuff, we tanked. I would never have known why without these new tools.

I spent last night doing this .. will try to get up to 100%/100%/100% this week for the fun of it
#backinthegame #optimizeeverything

[AussieDave]

When I became an affiliate (circa 2000), these metrics did not exist. A couple of years later, Google announced PR (Page Rank), and that started the ball-rolling per se. Thing is though, back then, I'd guess 98% of ALL GPWA members were competent coders, and WordPress wasn't around. You either coded your own site, or you hired a developer.

Fast forward to today, and ironically (maybe) 98% of active GPWA affiliates can't code.

I'm not picking on anyone.... But, take the "Word Press and Related Web Design" forum here, it's choker block full of requests seeking all manner of WP plugins. A lot of these requests could benefit by NOT using a plugin. Instead, bespoke-coding and shortcode(s).

My point is...

Core Web Vitals which may need attention on an affiliates site, who can't code, may find themselves in a bit of a bother trying to fix these issues.

[tufty]

In 2000 98% of webmasters were using Microsoft Frontpage and the like. I know I was. The need to code has never been there. You can get wordpress sites up to 100% on all metrics no problem, provided you host on a decent server. The benefit of plugins is that you are using someone else's code to solve your problem. There are fantastic plugins and other services that will speed up a WP site no end. Just sort the wheat from chaff.

[Christiaan]

I'll do my best to get good scores on Core Web Vitals. That Google gives the tool means that they want you to pay attention to this. So they will probably (we can never be sure) take these into account in the algorithm.

If it does not matter to the algorithm for your rankings, at least you improve the website for your visitors. Nobody likes to wait long or have a bad experience on mobile devices.

[ddm]

Core Web Vitals which may need attention on an affiliates site, who can't code, may find themselves in a bit of a bother trying to fix these issues.

evolve or die / hire an expert. =)

[WagerX]

This is good news. Another tool to help rank better. Unfortunately, I do not have enough data yet for a Core Web Vital report. I am having to use the Lighthouse DevTools, they recommend.
https://developers.google.com/web/to...ouse/#devtools

So far my biggest issue is image load times. They are 14 seconds total. They recommended better caching and alternative compression and/or formats for the images. There were also recomendations for unused css and javascript.

[AussieDave]

In 2000 98% of webmasters were using Microsoft Frontpage and the like. I know I was.

I specifically said... "98% of GPWA members". You were NOT a GPWA member back then you've only been here since 2016...

Most affiliates could code, and were using NotePad to raw code. Hell, some still do.

Anyway... If you want to try to discredit me, least have the courtesy to get your ducks in a row.

FYI.. I joined the GPWA in 2001, but there was a db scr#w up in 2005, and my old account couldn't be retrieved.

[tufty]

Not trying to discredit you. Just because you can code, don't assume everyone in 2000 was coding because it just isn't true. This is a business and always has been, so businessmen have been involved from day one. I was involved in this business from 1998, yes before there were affiliate programs. Go figure. It was not the preserve of just coders. Also your comments about wordpress are not right either. You are making assumptions that betray the fact you don't actually use wordpress. You can look down your nose at it, but it isn't that clunky or rather it doesn't need to be. Plugins are people writing code. I dont have to write the code if an expert is doing it for me. If I want a new bathroom I'll use a plumber, I don't need to build it myself.

[leaderint]

I have an AMP site so my scores are good by default but my LCP score was low due to a big image I had in a few places. It looks like web vitals are going to finally provide consistent reporting across all google tools and they mentioned there are more things being added to vitals in the future so it's definitely something worth optimizing.

[sly24]

Have you seen a huge performance difference in amp optimized websites?

[PokCas]

Have you seen a huge performance difference in amp optimized websites?

I am also interested in this.

[universal4]

I just had a conversation with another tech friend of mine (who does some dev work for another GPWA Member friend) the other night about optimization, and asked him why he always added an amp plugin right away and he seemed to think it did provide somewhat of a boost even if it was hard to quantify in specific results. His response was something along the lines of: "Well Google just likes it."

After I stopped chuckling I added that to my list of optimizing to look at closer, that answer was good enough for me.

Rick
Universal4

[sly24]

Yeah it's interesting. After I finish my round of auditing I will test with a non-gaming website to see how it fairs. If I remember I will report back

I just had a conversation with another tech friend of mine (who does some dev work for another GPWA Member friend) the other night about optimization, and asked him why he always added an amp plugin right away and he seemed to think it did provide somewhat of a boost even if it was hard to quantify in specific results. His response was something along the lines of: "Well Google just likes it."

After I stopped chuckling I added that to my list of optimizing to look at closer, that answer was good enough for me.

Rick
Universal4

[DaftDog]

AMP pages are a bit like fly-paper but without the sticky stuff. They look pretty boring to me and I feel they are not suitable for an affiliate site that is trying to attract clicks.

[GameSkill]

First of all, changes to the site to comply with Core Web Vitals will make the site more convenient for visitors.
Therefore, it is definitely worth doing.

[ddm]

Google finally validated my fixes (took about a week... ) some were ok, but my CLS is still crap on desktop..
back to the drawing board.

/me rolls up his virtual sleeves

[eenzoo]

Just working at one bigger site (staging version) - quite happy so far.

[ddm]

nice 1 ^ !!!

i got CLS to zero on mob, now working on getting desktop to zeeeeeeeeero

[canadiancasinos]

got lots of work ahead, with all these updates. what do you guys think, will exact match domains have bigger importance? there are some rumours in the air that they will.