Core Web Vitals in 2026 — the India edition

Google rolled out INP (Interaction to Next Paint) as a core ranking factor in March 2024. In 2026, 3 out of 4 Indian websites fail it. Yours probably does too.

The 3 metrics that decide your ranking

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): hero image / heading must render in under 2.5s.
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint): every click / tap must respond in under 200ms.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): page must not jump around. Score under 0.1.

Why Indian sites fail

• Bloated WordPress themes with 6MB of unused CSS.
• Third-party chat widgets and popups (Tawk, Freshchat, Tidio) blocking the main thread.
• Unoptimised hero images (2MB JPEGs, not WebP/AVIF).
• Hosting from cheap ₹99/month shared hosts with no CDN.

The fixes I ship

1. Convert every image to AVIF + lazy-load below the fold.
2. Move heavy JS behind user interaction (defer chat widgets).
3. Move to a CDN — Cloudflare, Bunny, or Vercel edge.
4. Ship server-rendered HTML (TanStack Start, Next.js, Astro) — kill unnecessary SPAs.
5. Preload the hero font + LCP image.

Result

A Gurgaon SaaS site went from LCP 4.9s / INR 480ms to LCP 1.6s / INP 140ms in a 2-week sprint. Organic traffic +38% in 60 days.

Free audit

Want to know if your site passes? Ask me for a free CWV audit.