Google Explains How CWV Is A Ranking Factor But Doesn't Improve Rankings

Core Web Vitals (CWV) is a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage's overall user experience. CWV includes metrics such as loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of the page. While CWV is a ranking factor, it is not so significant that improving it will necessarily improve search visibility. It is one part of a larger ranking engine, and perfect scores in CWV do not guarantee better rankings.

Actual user experience is considered more important than Core Web Vitals scores because it reflects the real-world experience of users browsing the website. Google's Rick Viscomi and Lizzi Sassman emphasized that developers should not over-fixate on the CWV scores but rather focus on the actual experience of their users. This is because a good user experience can lead to better performance in terms of sales, ad clicks, and conversions.

CWV is a ranking factor within Google's search systems, but it is not the only factor. John Mueller explained that CWV is part of a bigger ranking engine and the details of how it is applied are not disclosed by Google. Therefore, while it is good to improve CWV for the overall performance and user experience, achieving perfect CWV scores alone will not result in noticeable improvements in search rankings.

Site owners should focus on the quality of their content and the overall user experience rather than over-fixating on Core Web Vitals metrics. Lizzi Harvey advises that a better use of time is to ensure that the content is valuable and the design is user-friendly. Improving these aspects can make a more significant improvement for users and potentially impact search rankings more than just optimizing for CWV metrics.