Google Enhances INP Metric for Websites Utilizing Consent Management Platforms

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In a bid to boost website performance, Google has enhanced its Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric, particularly benefiting sites employing consent management platforms (CMPs). This collaborative effort with platforms like OneTrust, Complianz, and Axeptio promises accelerated load times upon cookie acceptance.

Barry Pollard, a member of Google’s Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) team, disclosed this initiative in a recent announcement on the CrUX Announcements group. According to Pollard, Google’s partnership with CMPs has led to significant improvements in INP for sites leveraging these platforms.

Understanding INP’s Significance As a replacement for First Input Delay (FID), INP measures the duration from user interaction with a page to the browser’s rendering of altered pixels on the screen. Serving as a Core Web Vital, INP contributes to evaluating a website’s interactivity and overall user experience.

Optimizing INP and Addressing Concerns To gauge a site’s current INP performance, developers can utilize tools like PageSpeed Insights and CrUX. Google has also released a tutorial to assist developers in identifying and rectifying INP issues, offering guidance on tasks such as diagnosing problematic areas, optimizing JavaScript, and streamlining DOM structure.

According to data from DebugBear, a web performance monitoring platform, the average website takes 1.3 seconds to load main page content, as measured by the Largest Contentful Paint metric. However, loading speeds vary significantly across different websites, devices, and locations.

FAQ

  1. What is Interaction to Next Paint (INP) and why is it important? INP measures the time lapse from user interaction with a page to the browser rendering changed pixels on the screen. It’s an evolution from the First Input Delay (FID) metric and is deemed a Core Web Vital by Google. INP is crucial as it quantifies webpage responsiveness, a key aspect of user experience. A lower INP (<200ms) signifies a more interactive and responsive website, potentially enhancing user satisfaction and search visibility.
  2. How have Consent Management Platforms been improved for better INP results? CMPs like OneTrust, Complianz, and Axeptio have been optimized through Google’s collaboration to enhance website INP metrics. This improvement involves the platforms «yielding more often,» especially when users accept cookies. By yielding more frequently, these platforms enable the browser’s main thread to handle consent-related tasks more efficiently, thereby enhancing the INP metric and overall performance.