Search Console's Core Web Vitals report shows your store's URLs as Poor or Need improvement. That means real visitors are getting a slow or jumpy experience. This guide covers what the report means, what usually causes it on Shopify, how to find the problem pages, how to fix them and how to keep them passing.
What the report means
Google says the Core Web Vitals report shows how your pages perform based on real-world usage data from the Chrome UX Report. It uses three metrics. A group of URLs gets the status of its worst metric, and mobile and desktop are reported separately.
| Metric | Good |
|---|---|
| LCP (loading) | 2.5 seconds or less |
| INP (interactivity) | 200 ms or less |
| CLS (visual stability) | 0.1 or less |
Google marks LCP over 4 seconds, INP over 500 ms and CLS over 0.25 as Poor.
Common causes on Shopify
Shopify says theme code, apps, images, videos, carousels, social media feeds and analytics can all affect performance. For INP, Shopify says poor scores most likely mean too much JavaScript in your store.
- Apps: Too many apps loading code on the storefront
- Leftover code: Uninstalled apps that left code in the theme
- Images: Files much larger than their display size
- Old theme: A theme that isn't up to date
- Tags: Unused tracking tags in a tag manager
Find the problem pages
In Search Console, open the Core Web Vitals report and click into the Poor issues for mobile first. URLs are grouped by similar experience, so one example often stands for a whole template. In Shopify, go to Analytics, then Reports, and open the web performance reports by page type to see which templates are slow.
- Search Console: Core Web Vitals, mobile first
- Shopify: Web performance reports by page type
- Test: PageSpeed Insights on an example URL
Fix it step by step
Work from the biggest cause down. Shopify recommends reviewing installed apps and removing any that aren't essential. Uninstalling an app doesn't always remove its code, so ask the developer how to clean it up.
- Apps: Remove ones you don't need
- Code: Ask developers to remove leftover snippets
- Images: Resize to display size; Shopify suggests JPG for photos
- Theme: Use an up-to-date theme
- Tags: Audit your tag manager and remove unused tags
- Validate: Click Start Tracking; Google monitors for 28 days
Keep pages passing
Test before you add anything new to the storefront. Shopify's web performance data can lag by up to 36 hours, so check a couple of days after each change.
- ✅ Check performance after every app install
- ✅ Resize images before uploading
- ✅ Review your app list every quarter
- ❌ Adding a new app for every small feature
Doing this at scale
ConvertLens improves product page content and does not change indexing, redirects or site speed settings. It scores every product page 0 to 100 against a conversion rulebook, including images and alt text, and drafts before/after rewrites of weak sections from the page's own copy for you to approve. It won't compress images, remove app code or fix Core Web Vitals. See ConvertLens.