Core Web Vitals matter less than you think (for most sites)

Controversial take incoming.

I’ve been tracking rankings for ~30 client sites over the past year. Some have perfect Core Web Vitals. Some are in the “needs improvement” bucket.

The correlation between CWV scores and ranking changes? Weak to nonexistent.

Now, caveats:
- This doesn’t mean speed doesn’t matter for UX
- It doesn’t mean Google is lying about CWV
- It doesn’t mean you should ignore performance

What it does mean: if you’re choosing between fixing CWV issues and creating better content, create better content.

The exception: if your site is genuinely slow (5+ second load times), fix that first. User experience affects everything.

But the marginal LCP improvement from 2.6s to 2.4s? Probably not moving the needle on rankings.

This might change. Google could increase the weight. But right now, in 2026, content quality and relevance still dominate.