Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals Industry Dashboard

Explore our Core Web Vitals performance report with fresh data from our experts. Analyses of the top 100 U.S. domains and benchmarks for eight industry segments make this the ultimate Core Web Vitals resource.

We offer the latest industry benchmarks for Core Web Vitals, segmented by industry and device. We compare top-performing domains against the entire Chrome User Experience Report which contains real-world user data on millions of domains.

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What questions does this report cover?

We offer data-driven answers to the following questions:

  • Do top domains perform better than average?
  • Do different industries vary in Core Web Vitals performance?
  • What are the differences between web performance on desktop and mobile?
  • How has website performance evolved over time?

How to navigate this report?

Core Web Vitals data offers a snapshot of website performance. Use the quick links below to navigate the report.

1. Dashboard
Top 100 performance & industry snapshot
2. League Tables
The most popular domains ranked
3. Trend Analysis
See what sets top 100 domains apart
4. Industry Breakdown
Explore industry-specific performance
5. Tips & Best Practices
How to optimize your Core Web Vitals
6. Methodolgy
How we collected the data

Dashboard: US Desktop Top 100

  • Average Core Web Vitals performance of the top 100 desktop domains in the US in February 2022
  • LCP and FID are within Google’s “good” threshold, CLS is just outside.
LCP (seconds) - loading time
2.38
-100
Good
+100
FID (milliseconds) - interactivity
2
-100
Good
+100
CLS (score) - visual stability
0.11
-100
Needs improvement
+100

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Understanding the dashboard
  • The top 100 US domains are determined by Searchmetrics SEO Visibility
  • Values shown are averages across the top 100 domains, devices are treated separately.
  • FID is shown in milliseconds. The relevance of FID as a metric and issues with data collection are explained below in the FID Analysis section.
  • Google’s thresholds for passing Core Web Vitals are 2.5 seconds for LCP, 100 milliseconds or less for FID, and a score of 0.1 or less for CLS.

Dashboard: US Mobile Top 100

  • Average Core Web Vitals performance of the top 100 mobile domains in the US in February 2022
  • Mobile LCP, FID, and CLS are all within Google’s “good” threshold.
  • This means that on average the US mobile top 100 pass Core Web Vitals
  • Mobile LCP is fractionally quicker than on desktop
Mobile - LCP (seconds)
2.32
-100
Good
+100
Mobile - FID (milliseconds)
18
-100
Good
+100
Mobile - CLS (score)
0.08
-100
Good
+100

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How does top 100 performance compare to the industry average?

To answer this question, we analyzed over 2 million websites in the CrUX database – every domain in the US that had a value for all three of the Core Web Vitals. This allows us to benchmark our findings against robust industry data.

  • Due to the size and specificity of the dataset, CrUX averages are the best estimate for industry-wide Core Web Vitals average values.
  • By comparing top brands’ performance to these values, we can analyze if these top-ranking sites have better web performance scores.
  • Check out the results below.

Dashboard: Industry Average (CrUX) – Desktop

  • Average Core Web Vitals performance of desktop domains in the US in February 2022
  • Domains analyzed: 1,074,618
  • As with the top 100, LCP and FID are within Google’s “good” threshold, CLS just outside.
  • CLS is slightly worse than the top 100.
LCP (seconds)
2.4
-100
Good
+100
FID (milliseconds)
0.86
-100
Good
+100
CLS (score)
0.12
-100
Needs improvement
+100

Dashboard: Industry Average (CrUX) – Mobile

  • Average Core Web Vitals performance of mobile domains in the US in February 2022
  • Domains analyzed: 1,003,515
  • LCP in the “needs improvement” range.
  • Mobile LCP is significantly worse than on desktop.
Mobile - LCP (seconds)
2.62
-100
Needs improvement
+100
Mobile - FID (milliseconds)
15
-100
Good
+100
Mobile - CLS (score)
0.1
-100
Good
+100

Dashboard: Industry Segment Snapshot

  • Vast performance differences uncovered when splitting data by industry segment
  • B2B and Healthcare lead the pack
  • Fashion and Travel trail behind (almost 3 times worse in some cases)

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What does this all mean?

Dashboard takeaways:

  • The top 100 slightly outperform the industry average.
  • The top 100 mobile LCP was 10% quicker than the CrUX average.
  • Top domains seem to have an advantage in mobile performance.
  • Looking at the industry snapshot, industries like B2B and Healthcare perform above average while other industries like Fashion and Travel perform poorly
  • Take a closer look in the industry deep dive

League Table – US Desktop Top 100

*Data from February 2022

Explore the Core Web Vitals performance of the top 100 domains in the US based on Searchmetrics SEO Visibility. All metrics and whether the domain passes Core Web Vitals are reported at the domain level across an entire month. For example, 75% of all of Wikipedia’s desktop page loads in February 2022 were 1.1 seconds or less – the domain scored 0 in FID (reported in milliseconds) and CLS meaning the domain passed Core Web Vitals in February 2022

League Table - US Desktop Top 100
Rank Domain LCP (s) FID (ms) CLS Passed CWV?
1 wikipedia.org 1.1 0 0 Yes
2 youtube.com 6.2 0 0.15 No
3 facebook.com 3.7 0 0.05 No
4 amazon.com 2.0 25 0.2 No
5 google.com 1.1 0 0 Yes
6 imdb.com 2.3 0 0.15 No
7 instagram.com 3.2 0 0.1 No
8 merriam-webster.com 2.2 25 0 Yes
9 twitter.com 3.4 0 0.05 No
10 britannica.com 2.2 25 0 Yes

Want to see the full
Top 100 desktop list?

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What is the Brand Effect?

It may be surprising to see that relatively few of the top 10 domains for desktop pass Core Web Vitals. However, it is important to note that these are some of the biggest global brands. They benefit from the brand effect – users navigate to their service regardless of user experience. If you download the full top 100 list, you will see that slightly more domains pass Core Web Vitals in the bottom 50 than in the top. This is further evidence for a heavy brand effect. It is important to note that each industry performs very differently – check out or industry breakdown below.

  • 56% of the top 100 desktop domains pass Core Web Vitals
  • Heavy brand effect – major brands rank highly even with poor performance

League Table – US Mobile Top 100

*Data from February 2022

The top 100 for mobile devices is based on the Searchmetrics SEO Visibility metric. Where possible a mobile version of a domain was used, however, this is largely dependent on CrUX data collection. It is interesting to note a higher share of mobile sites pass Core Web Vitals than desktop.

  • 61% of the mobile top 100 passed Core Web Vitals in February 2022
League Table – US Mobile Top 100
Rank Domain LCP (s) FID (ms) CLS Passed CWV?
1 wikipedia.org 1.3 0 0 Yes
2 m.youtube.com 2.3 0 0.1 Yes
3 m.facebook.com 2.9 0 0 No
4 amazon.com 1.9 0 0.1 Yes
5 instagram.com 4.4 0 0.25 No
6 imdb.com 2.3 0 0 Yes
7 google.com 1.2 0 0 Yes
8 merriam-webster.com 1.6 50 0 Yes
9 britannica.com 1.7 25 0 Yes
10 linkedin.com 1.4 0 0 Yes

Want to see the full
Top 100 mobile list?

Top 100 Trend Analysis

  • A closer look at the top 100 domains and their Core Web Vitals performance

 

LCP Trend Analysis (US Top 100)

In February 2022, the average loading time for the top 100 domains in the US was 2.38 seconds on desktop and 2.32 seconds on mobile – below Google’s good threshold of 2.5 seconds. Across the observed time period (January 2020 to February 2022), there is a general downward trend for both desktop and mobile domains – sites are significantly improving their site load time month on month.

About LCP

What is LCP?

The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric reports the render time of the largest image or text block visible to the user when the page first starts loading. The idea is to measure what the user can actually see while the page loads to better capture the user loading experience.

What is a good LCP score?

To achieve a “good” score, websites need to have an LCP of 2.5 seconds or less. Google measures whether 75% of page loads achieve this target. In this analysis, we look at LCP at the domain level across an entire month for a more reliable picture of CWV performance.

FID Trend Analysis (US Top 100)

In practice, there is not enough user data for a meaningful analysis of FID. FID requires a user to interact with a page for this metric to be recorded. Often this doesn’t happen and results in a 0 being recorded which explains the very low average FID values seen below. Even in the CrUX dataset covering 8.4 million domains, around 93-99% of domains were recorded as having a “good” FID which shows this problem does not improve with larger sample sizes.

In reality, page interactivity is worse than this, as we found in our previous Core Web Vitals study, using Total Blocking Time as a proxy for FID. Nevertheless, the FID data is included here for completeness.

About FID

What is First Input Delay?

First Input Delay (FID) measures interactivity of a page. Specifically it measures the time between when a user interacts with a page (click on a link, tapping a button) to when the browser can actually handle this request. The slower the FID, the more laggy a page will feel to a user.

What is a good FID score?

To achieve a good FID score, websites need to keep the interactivity delay of 75% of page loads under 100 ms. At the page level, if 75% of users have to wait less than 100ms to interact with that page, you achieve a good FID score. At the domain level, all pages need to meet this standard for 75% of users.

CLS Trend Analysis (US Top 100)

In February 2022, average CLS scores for desktop and mobile were 0.11 and 0.08 respectively – this is the first time that the average CLS on mobile for the top 100 sites has dipped below Google’s good threshold of 0.1. The chart shows a large spike in CLS scores for desktop sites between September 2020 and March 2021. This can partly be explained by Google changing its methodology for measuring CLS. By the time Google started the Core Web Vitals rollout in mid-June, scores began to stabilize.

About CLS

What is Cumulative Layout Shift?

CLS is a measures image stability. The higher the score, the more images will unexpectedly jump around on a page as it is loading, creating a negative user experience.

What is a good CLS score?

At the page level, Google awards a “good” score if 75% of page loads have a CLS score of 0.1 or less. At the domain level, 75% of all page loads across your domain would need to be 0.1 or below.

How has the Core Web Vitals performance evolved over time?

The chart below shows that a greater proportion of the top 100 domains are passing Core Web Vitals over time. In January 2020, only 22% of desktop and 27% of the mobile top 100 domains passed Core Web Vitals respectively. Fast forward to February 2022 and this proportion has more than doubled to 56% on desktop and 62% on mobile. This shows that top-performing domains have made significant gains in web performance.

Are certain metrics easier to pass than others?

Looking at the breakdown of the three Core Web Vitals tests, we can see that Largest Contentful Paint has the lowest share of domains that pass, followed by CLS. This makes sense as loading time is in general harder to optimize than image stability. We have already discussed that the FID metric is problematic – Google counts a score of zero as a pass which explains the high pass rates.

  • Loading time (LCP) is the hardest metric to optimize

You need help with Core Web Vitals
performance optimisation?

Industry Breakdown

February 2022

  • 8 industries’ performance compared with industry average (CrUX) and top 100
  • Healthcare, B2B and Dictionary/Reference sites perform the best with over 60% of domains passing CWV on both devices.
  • Fashion and Travel domains perform very poorly – only 25% of mobile fashion domains passed Core Web Vitals.
  • Interestingly, mobile performance outperformed desktop in certain categories including Healthcare, Media, the top 100, and Dictionary/Reference.

LCP Industry Analysis
  • Image-heavy categories Travel and Fashion exhibit much slower loading times compared to more factual, text-heavy segments like Healthcare and Dictionary domains.
  • Top 100, B2B, Healthcare and Dict/Reference sites have an average LCP of 2.5 seconds or less across both devices.
  • On average mobile LCP for Travel is 1.6 times worse than for Dictionary/Reference sites.
  • On average desktop LCP for Travel is 1.5 times worse than for  B2B domains.

FID Industry Analysis

There is not enough user data to draw accurate conclusions from the FID analysis. Nevertheless, the chart below is included for completeness.

CLS Industry Analysis
  • Travel and Fashion are image-heavy industries and perform the worst.
  • Performance differences across industries are even greater than for the LCP metric.
  • Only Healthcare and B2B are below Google’s good threshold of 0.1 for both desktop and mobile.
  • On average, mobile CLS for Fashion is 8 times worse than for B2B sites.
  • On average, desktop CLS for Fashion is 3 times worse than for B2B domains.

Core Web Vitals Best Practices

We have collected a host of information, tips, and guides FAQ-style below. Explore the questions to get started. One golden rule to follow is “less is more”. Reducing image sizes and removing unnecessary code and widgets will have a significant effect on your site performance.

How to get started?

  1. Analyze and monitor – start by analyzing your own performance. One of the easiest ways to do this is head to PageSpeed Insights and type in your URL. The Search Console (Core Web Vitals report) is another way
  2. Identify problem pages – look for pages with poor Core Web Vitals performance. If you are unsure where to focus your efforts, start with your most revenue-critical pages such as landing pages from paid campaigns, or organic product pages.
  3. Use best practices to optimize – we have gathered a few best practices and guides grouped by each Core Web Vital metric and level of difficulty.

How to monitor Core Web Vitals?

How to improve Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)?

LCP measures the loading time for the largest element on a page. Reducing the size of this element and the time it takes a browser to render this element are key ways of improving LCP.

Best practices

  • Compress images using tools like Squoosh
  • Choose the right image format – PNG is known for lossless compression, while WebP is a modern format developed by Google that can reduce image size.
  • Use responsive design by serving different image sizes to different devices
  • Consider replacing videos with thumbnail images
  • Reduce render-blocking resources (see resources below)
  • Lazy loading – only load the images, videos and resources above the fold, and load everything else in the background

Resources/Guides

General

Intermediate

Advanced

How to improve First Input Delay (FID)?

FID measures interactivity – the time between a user requesting a page and being able to click and scroll on page elements. A key way of improving FID is reducing render-blocking resources (typically JavaScript)

Best practices

  • Only load the resources necessary for page render and asynchronously load everything else (see guides below)
  • Consider inlining critical CSS and JS

Resources/Guides

General

Advanced

How to improve Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)?

CLS measures when layout elements such as images, banners or ads cause a shift in layout unexpectedly for the user. To avoid CLS, it is crucial to have robust layouts with correctly-sized elements.

Best practices

  • Use placeholders to reserve the necessary space for dynamic layout elements such as images and banners.
  • Correctly specify image size attributes
  • Don’t overlay content above existing content, except in response to user interactions.
  • Avoid animations of properties that trigger layout changes.

Resources/Guides

General 

Layout

Methodology

This report combines Searchmetrics traffic share analysis based on SEO Visibility with CrUX Core Web Vitals performance data. If you still have a question, feel free to reach out to us via @Searchmetrics

How did we collect the data?

Core Web Vitals performance data is taken from the Chrome User Experience Report. This report updates its data on the second Tuesday of every month for the previous month. Data is aggregated across an entire domain, not on the page level. CrUX data is based on real user interactions – this is sometimes called field data, for example in the Pagespeed Insights API.

How did we rank the top domains?

The top 100 domains are determined based on Searchmetrics’ SEO Visibility metric that analyzes total expected traffic based on all keywords and their SERP positions that a domain ranks for. This data is device and country-specific.

How did we define domains for each industry segment?

For the industry breakdown, a keyword set was defined for each of the 8 industries. This keyword set was tracked in the Searchmetrics Suite and a traffic share analysis was performed to establish the top 100 domains by industry and device.

How did we calculate the CrUX average benchmarks?

To calculate the average values across the entire US CrUX dataset, each domain that had a recorded value for all 3 Core Web Vitals metrics was aggregated, treating desktop and mobile separately.

How did we calculate the Core Web Vitals average values?

All metrics shown in this report are in the 75th percentile. This is the same as the metrics Google displays in PageSpeed tests under “Origin Summary”. For example, if a domain has an LCP of 2.4 seconds, then 75% of all visits to that domain across the entire month were quicker than 2.4 seconds.

Want to find out more about
Core Web Vitals?

  • Download the full length Top 100 spreadsheets to see how these domains are performing
  • Download the April 2021 Core Web Vitals Study to see the status before the rollout

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