Core Web Vitals in 2026: A Google Ranking Factor Core Web Vitals are Google's set of user experience metrics that directly influence search rankings. Since the Page Experience update, sites with poor Core Web Vitals face ranking disadvantages against competitors with comparable content quality. In 2026, the three Core Web Vitals are LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), INP (Interaction to Next Paint — which replaced FID in March 2024), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). Understanding what each metric