How to measure Core Web Vitals in 2026

Three numbers Google and Yandex actually care about. How to measure them on your site without a fancy dashboard.

How to measure Core Web Vitals in 2026

Three numbers Google ranks you on. Yandex started using similar metrics in 2025. If you ignore them, you lose.

LCP, INP, CLS targets
The three Core Web Vitals targets for green-zone scores.

The targets:

  • LCP ≤ 2.5s — Largest Contentful Paint. How fast the biggest visual element appears.
  • INP ≤ 200ms — Interaction to Next Paint. How fast the page responds to clicks. Replaced FID in 2024.
  • CLS ≤ 0.1 — Cumulative Layout Shift. How much things jump around as the page loads.

How to measure right now:

  • Chrome DevTools — Lighthouse tab. Run, see numbers.
  • PageSpeed Insights (web.dev/measure) — Google's own tool, free.
  • Search Console "Core Web Vitals" report — real user data from Chrome.

If any metric is in the red zone, that's where to start. Easy wins are usually images and lazy-loading.