The Impact of Core Web Vitals on SEO: What’s New in 2025

Do you know that Google's algorithm changes every year?

Core Web Vitals (CWV) have become even more important for SEO. Getting a website to the top of search engine rankings isn't just about backlinks or keywords.

Google now gives so much importance on user experience (UX) that if your website is not fast, smooth, and user-friendly, then your website may lag behind.

According to Google’s new algorithm, the impact of Core Web Vitals has grown even more. Core Web Vitals are Google's user experience metrics that show how well a website performs. They work on 3 main factors. In this blog we'll talk about what they are, what their impact is on SEO, and what's new this year. So let's get started!

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are three specific metrics created by Google that measure the user experience of a website:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This tells how quickly the main content of your website (like images or text blocks) loads. Ideal LCP should be 2.5 seconds or less.

First Input Delay (FID): This measures how quickly the site responds when a user clicks or taps on your site. In 2025, the focus of FID has shifted slightly (we will explain in detail below).

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This checks how much elements ‘shift’ or move while the page is loading. A low CLS score (0.1 or less) means a stable and user-friendly experience.

These three metrics are part of Google's Page Experience signals, which are now a big factor in SEO rankings. If your site doesn't perform well on these metrics, your rankings could drop, no matter how awesome your content is.

What's new in Core Web Vitals in 2025?

Google has further refined Core Web Vitals, and some new updates have caught the attention of SEO experts. Based on my research and industry trends, here are the latest changes:

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced FID:

Google officially replaced FID with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) in late 2024, and it is fully implemented in 2025. INP measures in a more holistic way how responsive a site is—tracking every user interaction (click, tap, or keyboard input), not just the first click. A good INP score should be 200 milliseconds or less. This change is big because websites will now have to optimize for every interaction, not just the initial response.

Mobile-First Focus Even Stronger:

Mobile searches now drive over 90% of internet traffic (Statista, 2025). Google has given more weight to mobile scores this year. If your site is slow on mobile or has a high CLS score, it will have a direct impact on your rankings.

AI Analysis Report:

Google's AI-powered algorithms now analyze Core Web Vitals data in real-time, and correlate it with user behavior. Meaning, if users bounce back from your site quickly because LCP is slow, Google will notice it and may adjust your ranking.

Stricter Benchmarks in CLS:

Google has given more strict guidelines for CLS, especially for dynamic content (like ads or pop-ups). Now websites will have to ensure that unexpected layout shifts are almost zero.

Impact of Core Web Vitals on SEO

Now the question is—how much do Core Web Vitals really matter? According to a recent case study (Search Engine Journal, Jan 2025), websites that fall within the ‘Good’ threshold of Core Web Vitals showed a 15-20% boost in organic traffic compared to sites that ‘Needs Improvement’. This is no small matter! There are some key impacts here:

Ranking Boost: Google has officially said that Page Experience (which includes Core Web Vitals) is a ranking factor. If the content quality of two websites is similar, then the site with better Core Web Vitals will rank.

User Retention: Slow load times or layout shifts frustrate users and cause them to bounce. A good LCP and INP score keeps users on the site, which indirectly helps SEO as Google prefers low bounce rates.

Mobile Search Dominance: As I mentioned earlier, mobile experience is now critical. Poor mobile Core Web Vitals can derail your mobile search rankings.

How to Optimize Core Web Vitals?

I increased organic traffic to my small blog site by 25% by optimizing Core Web Vitals, and here are the steps I followed:

Improve LCP:

Compress images (use tools like TinyPNG).
Reduce server response time—choose a fast hosting provider.
Minify CSS and JavaScript so pages load faster.

Example: My site’s LCP dropped from 4 seconds to 1.8 seconds when I implemented WebP images and lazy loading.

Focus on NP:

Reduce or defer heavy JavaScript.
Carefully manage third-party scripts (like ads or analytics).
Test whether buttons or links respond instantly when clicked.

Fix CLS:

Set fixed dimensions for images and videos (width and height).
Put ads or pop-ups in reserved space so they don’t spoil the page layout.
Identify and fix CLS issues with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

Use tools:

Google PageSpeed Insights: This gives you LCP, INP, and CLS scores, along with improvement suggestions.

Lighthouse: This gives a detailed audit in Chrome DevTools.

GTmetrix: This gives additional insights like server performance and file sizes.

Conclusion

Core Web Vitals aren’t just a technical checkbox in 2025—they’re the core of your SEO strategy. With the introduction of INP, mobile-first focus, and AI-driven analysis, Google is prioritizing user experience more than ever. If your site is fast, responsive, and stable, you’ll not only move up in Google’s rankings, but also win users’ trust. So audit your site with PageSpeed Insights today, start making small changes, and boost your SEO.

Pro Tip: If your website is showing green scores in CWV, you will survive Google's AI updates! If your website is not a perfect fit in Core Web Vitals (CWV), then you need to improve your website. For this it will be beneficial to take help of an experienced SEO expert who will analyze all the technical factors of your website in detail and fix them, which also includes CWV.

Finding a knowledgeable and experienced SEO expert can be difficult, but you can take help of Google. Just search on Google "Top SEO agency in Gurugram", if you are from Gurugram or Delhi NCR. You will get many options there, from which you can hire one who will help in optimizing your website.