Web users can now evaluate user experience using a new fast page label on Google Chrome.
Back in May, the Chrome team introduced Core Web Vitals. It’s a set of metrics — related to speed, responsiveness, and visual stability — to help evaluate the user experience on the web.
Now, the team is updating the Chrome browser to allow users to identify the pages that meet or exceed these metrics.
Starting with the beta of Chrome 85, a “fast page” label will appear when a user long-press on any link within the Chrome mobile browser. That way, users will know whether a page is fast, responsive, and stable.
The Google Chrome team wrote in a blog post announcement:
“To help users identify great experiences as they browse, we are excited to announce that Chrome will begin to highlight high-quality user experiences on the web, starting with the labeling of fast links via the link context menu on Chrome for Android.”
Chrome assigns the fast page label based on real-world historical data. For example, when a specific URL has been historically fast for other users, then the browser will display the badge.
However, pages that don’t have sufficient historical data will be evaluated based on the history of the website’s host.
Most Websites Won’t Get the Fast Page Label
According to a recent study, most websites won’t get the fast page label badge.
As said earlier, only pages that meet or exceed the Core Web Vitals metrics will get the new label. Meanwhile, reports suggest that just about 15 percent of sites on the web are optimized to pass the assessment.
While most sites meet the benchmark for one or two of the web vitals, few passed the assessment for all three.
Here’s a breakdown of the Core Web Vitals and their respective thresholds.
1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
The LCP evaluates the perceived load speed and marks the point in the page load timeline when the main content was loaded. It should be 2.5 seconds of landing on a page.
2. First Input Delay (FID)
FID measures responsiveness and quantifies the speed at which users can interact with a page after landing on it. This should occur within 100 milliseconds.
3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
CLS evaluates visual stability and quantifies the number of unexpected layout shifts of visible page content. Pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.
About 90 percent of mobile URLs in the study passed the FID assessment. On the other hand, less than 50 percent of the websites passed the LCP and CLS assessments.
In other words, sites that want to earn the fast page label may want to focus on these two parts of the Core Web Vitals.
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