Google is always looking to enhance search experience, and as a result, in May 2023, it announced a change to Core Web Vitals, which will provide a better way of evaluating UX (including site speed). This change means that Interaction to Next Paint will replace First Input Delay as of this month (March 2024).
At Visualsoft, we’ve implemented improvements to adhere to Google’s updates, resulting in faster-loading sites for clients.
The importance of Core Web Vitals
To better explain this change, let’s dig into what Core Web Vitals are and why they’re important
Core Web Vitals were introduced by Google in early 2020 as a way of helping site owners to provide a better search experience for users; these were a way of combining how quickly a website loads vs what users ‘wanted’ to see first. We’re talking thin margins here, but how often have you been frustrated by a site that would load or one that has its content jumping around (it’s a rhetorical question)?
A large portion of this was focused on users being able to browse & interact with a page as quickly as possible, i.e. core page elements loading & without moving around.
Like site speed (which is now absorbed by these metrics), CWVs isn’t a huge SEO ranking factor, but it should be considered an essential part of overall user experience.
Core Web Vital metrics & definitions accessed via Google Search Console
In March 2024, First Input Delay will be replaced by Interaction to Next Paint.
What’s the difference between First Input Delay (FID) and Interaction to Next Paint (INP)?
INP aims to give a more holistic view of a user’s experience when browsing and interacting with a website. Where FID only measures a user’s first interaction with a site and the browser's response, INP will measure the interactivity throughout a user’s time on the page.
This will include now measuring the time for scripts to load after the initial page load, being able to measure the performance of dynamic websites, and giving a broader view of a page’s interactivity (interactions include mouse clicks, taps (on touch screens) and keystrokes), which was not previously monitored by FID - resulting in a better reflection of real user experiences.
What does this mean for Visualsoft clients?
We’ve been working towards ensuring that we’re now adhering to these new changes internally for all Visualsoft clients. Our platform was already quite successful in terms of the recent metrics but we’ve made a few adjustments to make sure.
As a result of this coming into force, the good news is customers will likely notice a significant increase in how quickly pages load on the Visualsoft platform, as well as the INP Core Web Vital metric now being marked as passed. Check your Google Search Console ‘Core Web Vitals’ metrics!
