The Relationship Between Core Web Vitals & Website Builders

In order to rocket your website up the rankings of Google’s search engine, then businesses better be prepared to abide by the tech giant’s rules. 

What this means right now is that businesses catch up to Google’s latest update for its Core Web Vitals. And these consist of three metrics: First Input Delay, Cumulative Layout Shift, Largest Contentful Paint. 

These are the three main – but not only – metrics that go into determining Google’s overall page experience. 

What they translate into is the necessity for a website to provide users with better and faster experiences online. Because Google is strongarming websites into meeting users’ higher expectations and rewarding them with a boost to their search engine rankings.

Within this environment, there is plenty of advice and insight into how to measure Core Web Vitals and how to improve them to place a website in a better position – both in the minds of users and in the search engine. 

But how do website builders – such as Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly – relate to Core Web Vitals and what is their impact in a website’s performance? 

Generally, one of their stronger points is that they tend to be mobile-responsive. Today, it’s the norm for a website builder to have mobile responsive templates, with many of them enabling you to edit mobile design. 

In addition, good website builders include Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates, already integrated into the platform, in order to provide HTTPS encryption for data passing from website visitors – such as payment details, login details, etc. 

Alternatively, when it comes to the weaknesses of website builders, site speed is generally a limiting factor. Builders struggle in this area. Slow site speed is the most frustrating element of the digital experience. Worst of all, when using a website builder, you can’t edit the website’s hosting nor the code. 

Website builders’ impact on Core Web Vitals 

According to new research of 3,000 URLs – on both desktop and mobile – Core Web Vitals have a major impact on websites. 

Overall, even the best-performing ecommerce website builders slip into Google’s ranking of “Needs Improvement.” 

Other stats to keep in mind 

When it came to server response time, t

he fastest platform was Shopify, while the slowest platform was Wix. 

Elsewhere, it has been determined that the most challenging metric to improve is Cumulative Layout Shift. Among the platforms studied, only Wix got a “Good” rating on desktop for Cumulative Layout Shift. No platform was able to manage a “Good” rating on mobile. 

And finally, in general, mobile performance is poor no matter what platform. Websites on mobile really struggled when it came to Core Web Vitals. And this is worrying because mobile is now the most used medium to search the internet. 

PS: ArganoUV is one of the world’s leading Core Web Vitals agencies. Contact us to see how we can work together.