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Google updates its page experience docs to clarify ranking signals

This Tuesday, Google will roll out a change to the Core Web Vital metrics where it will replace First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a Core Web Vitals metric. On March 12, 2024, you will see FID go away and INP take its place.

The Core Web Vitals update is distinct from the ongoing March 2024 Google Core update; core updates and Core Web Vitals have no relation to each other.

The news of INP replacing FID is not new, and we knew it was coming, Google prepared us, and this Tuesday it will happen.


What is Interaction to Next Paint? As a reminder, INP is a metric that uses data from the Event Timing API. It assesses the responsiveness of a webpage. An interaction that causes a page to become unresponsive results in a poor user experience, Google said. INP observes the latency of all interactions a user has made with the page and reports a single value which all (or nearly all) interactions were below.

On the left, long tasks block the accordion from opening. This causes the user to click multiple times, thinking the experience is broken. When the main thread catches up, it processes the delayed inputs, resulting in the accordion opening and closing unexpectedly.

What is changing? Google will replace the FID metric with the INP metric as part of the Core Web Vitals on March, 12, 2024. Google Search Console will include INP in the Core Web Vitals report later this year so you can start measuring your new INP scores.

Posted on: 3/13/2024 1:30:56 PM


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