Google recently announced a new experimental metric (INP) for the Core Web Vitals, which will eventually replace the First Input Delay (FID). This new and better responsive metric addresses the limitations of FID more effectively. The Interaction to Next Paint metric will help assess the quality of a web page’s user experience. A low INP would indicate a quick and consistent response from the web page to all or most user interactions.
First announced in 2022, the INP metric is still in its experimental phase and will be rolled out by March 2024.
What Does This Mean For Google Search Console and Site Owners?
In Google Search Console, INP will replace FID and provide web developers and site owners the data required to enhance their web pages. INP will be added to the Core Web Vitals report later this year. Eventually, when the INP metric is rolled out, the FID metric will no longer be a part of the Search Console report. Instead, the new INP metric will be used for responsiveness.
For site owners who have already made changes to their pages based on the Core Web Vitals guidelines, INP would only help enhance the responsiveness of those pages and improve website performance.
Core Web Vitals was first introduced by Google on May 20, 2020. They are a set of web page factors that Google considers important as it helps facilitates better user experience. It includes three metrics: Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift. These metrics help highlight the URL’s performance and include statuses like poor, need improvement, and good. Achieving a high Core Web Vitals score can help boost your site’s ranking, mainly because it helps improve user experience.
