The secret behind Google’s Core Web Vitals
This post lays why the Justice Department might require Google to sell Chrome. Please visit Waterfaller.dev to fix page speed and core web vital issues on your website.
After an extensive investigation by the Justice Department and state prosecutors, it is reported that the Chrome browser may at the center of its antitrust lawsuit. In this post, I explain who Google uses its market dominance in Chrome to change the web and business. According to Google,
The Chrome User Report provides user experience metrics for how real-world Chrome users experience popular destinations on the web.
User Experience Metrics
CrUX reports on what Google calls Core Web Vitals. These metrics measure a user's perception of the loading, interactivity, and visual stability of a web page.
Google invented the Core Web Vitals.
Prior to Web Vitals, businesses created metrics using the User Timing API or Element Timing API to measure various aspects of the user experience on a web page. WebPage Test invented new metrics like Speed Index. Thought leaders like Steve Souders talked discussed the issue back in 2013.
It is not new to invent new ways of measuring user experience.
In November 2020, Google linked its Web Vitals and CrUX report to its search business saying the page experience signals in ranking will roll out in May 2021.
The result is that anyone can get CrUX data on competitors and Google reports on core web vitals in its Search Console:
Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results
Google used its monopoly position with Chrome to invent metrics, collect them, and then use the results in its search business.
The result is no other speed metrics matter.
They report a “70% increase in the number of users engaging with Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights” (accessed December 11, 2020).
Google drives innovation across the market proven by the general support for Core Web Vitals by page speed apps like SpeedCurve, New Relic, GT Metrics, and WebPage Test.
Real-world
Real user monitoring is the domain of site owners (literally). They would add a beacon script like Boomerang to their web pages to collect data from their end-users. This space is called digital experience monitoring and RUM data is owned by site owners and used internally.
Google also gathers RUM, calling it field data, using the Chrome browser and makes the data publically available.
The Chrome User Experience Report is powered by real user measurement of key user experience metrics across the public web, aggregated from users who have opted-in to syncing their browsing history, have not set up a Sync passphrase, and have usage statistic reporting enabled.
The above image (accessed December 10, 2020) shows how Google conflates “crash reports” and “usage statistics”. The usage statistics get highly aggregated and turned into the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
CrUX data is different than other signals that Google uses in ranking results. Other signals are gathered by the Googlebot, while this data is collected from Chrome users.
Popular destinations
This concept of collecting data on web page speed is not new. httpArchive has used WebPage Test for years to crawl millions of home pages each month to report on their composition and speed. The striking difference is that CrUX gathers the data from opted-in users on every URL they access with Chrome.
Please not misunderstand. This is not a personal privacy issue, however, the difference in methodology and scope seems relevant to the current anti-trust case.
Google uses its browser dominance to gather data that is not possible by any other entity. While making the web faster is cool, Google then combines this data with its search dominance to require de facto compliance.
Further, it's a feedback loop. Data from Core Web Vital initiative results in innovations to the Chrome browser to help businesses meet Google’s benchmarks for page ranking.
Anti-trust problem
As a page speed nerd, this is crazy. Until core web vitals, all page speed benchmarks and metrics were internal to the business. We could choose to benchmark speed relatively (Are we 20% faster than last month?) or against competitors (Are we 20% faster than x, y, and z company?).
Now just pass core web vitals.
Google uses this data starting in May to inform its Page Experience rubric and it is driving a lot of web development work, much like other Page Experience requirements (i.e. adoption of HTTPS).
This is actual budget spend.
While all these initiatives are defensible, I can see why the Justice Department may target Chrome as part of an antitrust remedy.
As a side hustle, I created Waterfaller.dev to fix page speed and core web vital issues on your website. I appreciate your comments and feedback.
