This article deals with the topic LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): What does this mean for your own website? How does it affect you and what does a website have to do to perform well?
LCP: What is it?
The acronym LCP stands for "Largest Contentful Paint." The somewhat unwieldy English term translates into German as "largest visible content element". In the future, Google will use LCP to measure the speed or loading performance of a website. Specifically, this is done by measuring the time until the largest visible content element in the display area is completely rendered. Usually this is a video, an image or a particularly extensive text module.
How does LCP affect my website?
The LCP metric is important to Google in the context of page experience because by displaying the largest content item, the website visitor knows that the website is actually loading. Website owners should therefore make sure that the most important elements on their page load quickly. This is especially true when it comes to transmission-intensive displays such as videos or high-resolution images.
The background for the introduction of the new Page Experience metric is the thin patience thread of the average Internet user. In times of high-speed Internet, the tolerance of most users with regard to the loading time of websites is conceivably low. Google wants to do justice to this development with the addition of the LCP factor and prefer fast-loading websites to pages with a low loading speed.
What does my website have to do to score well on LCP?
Google has even set precise measurements for the new page experience metric LCP. Websites where the main content loads within 2.5 seconds of the website being accessed are considered good by the search engine giant. If the loading time adds up to four seconds, website operators should improve the page speed.
If the LCP value exceeds four seconds, the website is rated as poor by Google.
