"Core Web Vitals matter for ranking, but other user experience aspects don't directly impact it."
What Google updated:
Core Web Vitals are used by our ranking systems. We recommend site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals for success with Search and to ensure a great user experience generally. Keep in mind that getting good results in reports like Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report or third-party tools doesn’t guarantee that your pages will rank at the top of Google Search results; there’s more to great page experience than Core Web Vitals scores alone. These scores are meant to help you to improve your site for your users overall, and trying to get a perfect score just for SEO reasons may not be the best use of your time.
It also added:
Beyond Core Web Vitals, other page experience aspects don’t directly help your website rank higher in search results. However, they can make your website more satisfying to use, which is generally aligned with what our ranking systems seek to reward. Therefore it’s still worth working to improve page experience overall.
While Core Web Vitals matter for ranking, Google downplays the immediate impact of other user experience features.
As mentioned earlier, Google officially replaced the First Input Delay (FID) metric with Interaction to Next Paint (INP). While INP is a new factor in Core Web Vitals, it’s important to remember that these metrics are considered secondary SEO signals. You might see better results by prioritizing other SEO areas before diving deep into Core Web Vitals optimization.
We are hosting a webinar on "Tips for FID to INP transition" on March 14, 2024 at 3 PM IST.
