Corbacount
Feature deep-dive

Core Web Vitals, from real visitors.

Three metrics Google uses to score how your site actually feels. Corbacount captures them straight from your visitors' browsers - no synthetic test, no separate tool.

LCP - Largest Contentful Paint

How long until the biggest visible thing on the page (usually the hero image or headline) finishes loading. Good is under 2.5 seconds, per Google's documentation. Above 4 seconds is "poor" in Google's scoring.

INP - Interaction to Next Paint

The lag between a tap or click and the page actually responding to it. Replaced FID in March 2024 because it captures the full interaction, not just the first. Good is under 200ms, per Google's documentation.

CLS - Cumulative Layout Shift

How much content jumps around as the page loads (think: a button you were about to tap moving at the last second). Good is under 0.1, per Google's documentation. Mostly caused by images without dimensions and late-loading ads or banners.

How Corbacount captures them.

Field data from the same visitors that count towards your traffic - not a lab test on a synthetic machine.

Native browser APIs

The tracker hooks into PerformanceObserver in real visitor browsers - the same source Chrome's CrUX report uses.

Sent on page hide

Beaconed back when the visitor navigates away, so the measurements are complete and never block your page.

Per-device breakdown

See mobile vs desktop vs tablet separately - mobile is usually where the bad surprises live.

Per-page rollups

Sort by which pages have the worst LCP, INP or CLS so you know exactly where to spend your engineering time.

Why it matters.

Search ranking

Google has used Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal for desktop and mobile search since 2021. Poor vitals don't tank your rankings overnight, but everything else being equal, the faster site wins.

Conversion rate

Slow pages get abandoned. Bounce rate climbs sharply once LCP crosses 3 seconds. Layout shifts make people misclick - and lose trust in your interface.

Lab tests miss real users

Lighthouse runs on a fixed simulated device. Your visitors run on five-year-old Android phones on bad Wi-Fi. Only field data tells you what they actually see.

Same source as Google's report

The Chrome User Experience Report uses the exact same browser APIs Corbacount taps into. If your dashboard shows a bad number, Google sees it too.

Field data vs lab data.

Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights run your page once, on one simulated device, on one throttled connection. Useful for debugging - but it is not what your visitors experience.

Field data is the aggregate of real pageviews: the visitor on a five-year-old Android phone on hotel Wi-Fi, the one on fibre with an M-series laptop, and everyone in between. Because the spread is wide, Google does not look at your average - it looks at the 75th percentile. Your LCP only counts as "good" if at least 75% of real visits load in under 2.5 seconds. A great average with a slow tail still fails.

Corbacount measures the vitals inside the same tracking snippet that counts your visitors, using the browser's native PerformanceObserver API on every real pageview. The numbers are beaconed when the visitor leaves the page, so measurement adds zero load time. There is nothing extra to install beyond the one-line snippet - if you track visitors, you are already collecting vitals.

That makes the dashboard a field-data report segmented your way: per page, per device class, per day. Run Lighthouse to find why a page is slow; use field data to know whether it is slow for the people who matter. See how the report looks in the dashboard tour.

Common questions.

Why does Google use Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal?

Because slow, janky pages make search results look bad. Google folded the vitals into its page experience signals in 2021: between two pages with similar content, the one that loads faster and shifts less tends to rank higher. It is a tiebreaker, not a magic lever.

What is a good LCP, INP and CLS score?

At the 75th percentile of real visits: LCP at or under 2.5 seconds, INP at or under 200 milliseconds, CLS at or under 0.1. "Poor" starts at 4 seconds, 500 milliseconds and 0.25 respectively. Anything between is "needs improvement". Mobile and desktop are assessed separately.

Lab data or field data - which should I trust?

Field data, because it is what Google's ranking signal actually uses and what your visitors actually feel. Lab tools are reproducible debuggers: great for before/after comparisons while you fix something, blind to real devices and networks. Trust the field number, debug with the lab tool.

Do vitals affect more than rankings?

Yes - conversions. Visitors abandon pages that feel slow long before any search-ranking effect shows up, and layout shifts cause misclicks that erode trust. Vitals sit next to your traffic and the rest of your domain health signals, so you see speed and outcomes in one place.

Want this in your dashboard?

Core Web Vitals are included on every Corbacount plan, no upgrade needed. Drop your email and we will let you know when it is your turn.