Insights / SEO

Core Web Vitals, explained for founders

Devaltech · 8 min read

Core Web Vitals are Google's attempt to measure what a visitor feels: how long the page takes to show something useful, how quickly it reacts when they tap, and whether things move around under their thumb while it loads.

What the three measure

Largest Contentful Paint is when the main thing on the page appears. Interaction to Next Paint is how fast the page answers a tap. Cumulative Layout Shift is how much the page jumps while it settles. Good scores are a consequence of a well-built page, not a thing you bolt on afterwards.

Why it is worth your attention

They are a small ranking factor and a large conversion factor. A page that feels slow loses people before it ever gets the chance to rank.