Key pages meet Core Web Vitals thresholds

Google uses Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, and CLS — as direct page-experience ranking signals, confirmed in the 2023 Google Search documentation. Pages with LCP above 2.5s or CLS above 0.1 are algorithmically penalized in ranking relative to pages that meet thresholds. Beyond ranking, INP above 200ms produces measurably degraded user interaction feedback, which correlates with higher bounce rates. These metrics are tracked in Google Search Console under Core Web Vitals report, making poor performance visible to any competitor who looks. iso-25010:2011 performance-efficiency.time-behaviour maps directly to these thresholds.

Measure with Lighthouse (npx lighthouse https://yoursite.com --output json) or PageSpeed Insights. Address the three thresholds in order of impact:

• LCP (target ≤2.5s): Add priority prop to the above-the-fold next/image in app/page.tsx. Preload hero images with <link rel="preload"> in app/layout.tsx.
• CLS (target ≤0.1): Add explicit width and height to every <Image> component. Reserve space for ad slots and async-loaded content with CSS min-height.
• INP (target ≤200ms): Defer non-critical third-party scripts with next/script strategy="lazyOnload". Break long tasks with scheduler.yield() in interactive handlers.

// app/page.tsx — LCP fix
import Image from 'next/image'
<Image src="/hero.webp" alt="Hero" width={1200} height={600} priority />

Re-run Lighthouse after each change to confirm threshold movement before deploying.