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An update to the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console means that you can now see URL-level data in the example URLs
Google announced the update on in a tweet on 22 Aug, along with an image of what it looks like:
Google notes that the Core Web Vitals report is not designed to check the status of individual URLs, but serves to get an overview of your site’s performance and to hlep you troubleshoot issues common to multiple pages.
“The report is not designed [to] find the status of a specific URL, but rather to see your site's performance as a whole, and troubleshoot issues affecting multiple pages on your site. If you want to see performance data about a specific URL, use an external test. Although you can drill down on a status and issue and see specific affected URLs, finding a given URL using the Core Web Vitals report can be challenging.”
A new Additional Information section relating to this update has been added to Google's help page for the Core Web Vitals report.
Metrics and status are assigned at the group level. Google assumes that these URLs will have a common framework and probably the same underlying reasons for poor performance.
Click on a URL in the Examples table to see more information about the page group represented by the URL, including scores for other URLs in the group if the URL has enough data to show. Google says while there may be outliers, most URLs will have the same status applied to the group.
“The LCP, FID, and CLS status applies to the entire group. Some outlier URLs might have better or worse values on some visits, but 75% of visits to all URLs in the group experienced the group status shown.”
You can click on a URL in the group to run a PageSpeed Insights test on it. However, Google notes that there are important differences between PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals information:
"Core Web Vitals combines data and status into URL groups; PageSpeed Insights generally shows data for individual URLs (unless the URL doesn't have enough information by itself). The statistics for a specific URL in PageSpeed Insights might not match the group results in Core Web Vitals, because an individual URL might be an outlier in its group.
Core Web Vitals URLs include URL parameters when distinguishing the page; PageSpeed Insights strips all parameter data from the URL, and then assigns all results to the bare URL."
The update will make this Search Console report more useful for users, providing further insights into areas needing improvement to enhance performance for the Core Web Vitals.
More Search Console updates
Google has announced that the Search Console Video Indexing Report is now live for all properties where it detects video.
You can read more details in Google’s blog post announcing the new report.
Google had announced in June that it would simplify the classification applied to items in Search Console reports, including the Core Web Vitals report, to two categories: valid and invalid.
This change is now live in Search Console. The Validate Fix feature, which was temporarily disabled while the classification change was implemented, has been restored.
