Encyclopedia / SEO & GEO
Core Web Vitals
Google's three measures of how a page feels to use.
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures load speed: aim for 2.5 s or less. INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures responsiveness: 200 ms or less. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures visual stability: 0.1 or less. Google measures them on real visitors' devices, and they're a ranking signal.
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Where it shows up in a page load
- Step 9: Style, layout, paint. CSS is applied to the DOM. The browser works out where every box goes (layout) and draws the pixels (paint). The moment the largest piece of content appears is called LCP, and it's one of Google's Core Web Vitals.
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