A fast website: what it means and how to get one

A website counts as fast when its largest content appears within 2.5 seconds for most visitors.

The three metrics Google uses

Google calls them Core Web Vitals. A value under the threshold counts as good.

Largest Contentful PaintLCPGood: under 2,5 s
Time until the largest element on screen has rendered, usually your hero image or heading.
Interaction to Next PaintINPGood: under 200 ms
How long the page takes to respond to a tap or click.
Cumulative Layout ShiftCLSGood: under 0,1
How much content moves around while the page loads.

Images straight from the camera
A phone photo is often 4 to 8 MB when it should be a few hundred kilobytes.
Too many scripts that are not yours
Chat bubble, booking widget, map, two analytics tools, a cookie banner. Each loads its own code from someone else's server.
A host that answers slowly
If the server takes a second before it starts sending anything, no amount of front-end work wins that second back.
Fonts fetched from elsewhere
A font loaded from another domain has to arrive before the text can finish rendering.
Nothing cached between visits
Without caching the browser fetches everything again on every visit.

PageSpeed Insights
Google's own tool, and the same data Google itself looks at.
Search Console
If your website is verified there, the Core Web Vitals report covers the whole website over time.

Images you upload are resized and stored in a modern format automatically.
A website built in 8pixel loads no third-party code you did not switch on yourself.
Pages are served ready-made from a content delivery network.

Google's threshold is largest contentful paint within 2.5 seconds for most visitors.

Yes, but less than many assume. Google says the metrics are one signal among several.

No. The score is a lab test on a simulated slow phone. Look at the field data instead.

Almost never. Start with the images and with removing scripts you no longer use.

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