Googlebot Doesn't Evaluate The Core Web Vitals; Chrome Does

Apr 23, 2021 - 7:31 am 0 by

Nitpick Google

Google's John Mueller pointed out an important fact that I see a lot of folks in the industry misunderstanding around core web vitals. Googlebot does crawl the web and brings in most of the signals Google uses to rank your pages, but the core web vitals do not come from Googlebot or crawling, it comes from the Chrome CRuX field data report.

That means, Google uses real Chrome usage data to bring in data around the core web vitals about specific pages. That includes the LCP, FID, and CLS scores. Googlebot crawling is not the source Google is getting this data from. Chrome usage, a person visiting your site on a Chrome browser, is where Google is getting this data from.

You can learn more about the Chrome user experience report there if you want.

Here are John's tweets:

Also, just because this is named "core" web vitals, it does not mean this is a core update. They are two VERY DIFFERENT things.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 8, 2025

May 8, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Updates

Google Search Ranking Volatility Spiked Thursday - May 8th

May 8, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Launches New Charts: Bar, Column and Time-Series

May 8, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Tests Read Reviews Button & Appointment Tags On Local Listings

May 8, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

Apple Says Google Searches Down On Safari & Google Says Searches Are Up

May 8, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Tests Alignment Changes To Search Result Snippets

May 8, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Local Showing When Reviewer Visited Location On Review