Core Web Vitals

I'm sure someone from Squarespace will tell me that as a platform, Google treats them differently than the rest of the world - or that in fact, SS is 'special'. 

Google not to long ago released Core Web Vitals. They have a good explanation of what this is here: https://web.dev/vitals/ 

Don't be fooled, web.dev is Google, not some third party. 

Guess what, Google doesn't treat Squarespace any different from any other website - whether it uses custom Javascript, PhP, Asp.net or other code vs. a builder CMS like SS, Wix, Weebly. They are all the same in the eyes of Google.

So what does this chart below say about this domain? It says that the pages are slow and not built very well. That's what it says. What's the main issue? The website is as slow as a dog. 24 seconds to be interactive. Google's goal is 3-4 seconds. 

The main issue? Way too much CSS, way too much CSS that isn't even used. Way too much JS that isn't even used. 

Oh and a CMS that doesn't automatically compress images or defer loading of those below the fold.  All of which are pretty common.

Any thoughts here?

Site URL: https://www.birdmafia.com

Hi all, 

hoping one of you can help give some insight for me.  Running pagespeed tests, my site always seems to be super slow scoring due to images in one way or another. I'm trying to find out if there's something I can do on my end to help this issue, or if it is how Squarespace formats, stores, or displays images for us...

I'm going to link some screenshots. I'm really trying to see what I can do for the top 3 issues that waste the most time on page loading.

This first one shows the total potential savings by optimizing for these issues. That's 45 seconds, but may not work that way as these issues could be inter-connected I guess.  I opened each issue so you could see the description of what it says.  Thanks for any help/info.

Hey @veganedge! The tool is useful when coding your own site, but can present misleading results for sites built on a CMS platform, like Squarespace. You can find some information on this here: 

https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206545657#toc-google-s-pagespeed-insights-errors

There is also a great guide on formatting images for web here, if you want to check it out:

https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/search?commit=Search&query=Formatting+your+images+for+display+on+the+web&utf8=✓

Hope this helps!

Thank you!  I thought the first part you mentioned might be the case (as I've never had issues with our site loading slowly at all.) @violettag

My thoughts are that Squarespace needs to take this seriously, or else people may jump ship to another web builder. Since we have absolutely no control over these things to optimize performance, this may push people to start looking elsewhere. Hopefully they are planning on addressing this in a new version of Squarespace, such as 7.2 or 8. It's frustrating because for all of the great features within Squarespace, the beautiful templates and user-friendliness of the platform, there are several areas Squarespace ignores or drops the ball. In the years I've been using the platform, as an example, I don't remember any updates to the Form block functionality, even after other platforms such as TypeForm revolutionized web forms. But Core Web Vitals is the type of "con" to weigh so heavily, with no solution for optimizing performance, it may push even the most ardent supporters of Squarespace to look at other platforms. The first competitor to address this could see a lot of new subscribers, so hopefully it's something Squarespace doesn't just ignore, as there is a huge opportunity for them to steal people away from their competitors, rather than lose them.

Totally agree! Articles like this WP vs Squarespace SEO don't do well to Squarespace. Getting a better SEO reputation requires Squarespace to take Core Web Vitals seriously 

Site URL: https://www.atlas.dental

I have a website www.atlas.dental that performs pretty well on the SERPs but could use improvements. These are the problems that I have identified:

1) Eliminating the Cumulative layout shift (CLS) problem

2) Decreasing time for First Contentful Paint and Largest Contentful Paint

3)Eliminating render-blocking resources problem

4)decreasing the total size of the website to load

5) Remove unused javascript

I am looking for some direction with whom to talk to about fixing these problems. Are they easy to fix on a Squarespace platform?

On 1/4/2021 at 1:49 PM, atlasdentalto said:

1) Eliminating the Cumulative layout shift (CLS) problem

2) Decreasing time for First Contentful Paint and Largest Contentful Paint

3)Eliminating render-blocking resources problem

4)decreasing the total size of the website to load

5) Remove unused javascript

I am looking for some direction with whom to talk to about fixing these problems. Are they easy to fix on a Squarespace platform?

I'm looking for exactly the same assistance for my squarespace site!

Think there are improvements that can be made, but I also think allot of this drive to speed at all costs is just Google's way of saving their indexing costs. Consider that on my website the things that slow down the page most of all are Google Assets, which I have little opportunity to optimise!

In other words, Google has kicked their indexing cost cans down our road to deal with. 

There's a history of carrot and donkey with Google generally sold under the auspices of getting more free traffic if you jump through x hoop. SEO implementations is littered with these carcasses, speed is one they got to stick more. Not saying fast sites are not important, but let's be clear that there are plenty of slow websites running paid-ads.

I have the same question!
Google Search Console can't find any CLS free url from my site 🤯
According to google squarespace does not have any good links? Not even 1.

Can we get some assistance, @Squarespace Guru

Following this as well

Also having this issue.

Hi guys

I'm panicking because I'm seeing search traffic and impressions drop on my Squarespace site.

I've had healthy growth for literally years with no trouble. Core Web Vitals starts flagging RED for CLS and LCP issues recently and I'm seeing a decline in google search traffic since. 

This has literally translated to a loss of a top spot for a key affiliates post and a loss of income of at least £1000 ($1400) per month (plus whatever leads/conversion I might lose from now onwards). As a small business Organic traffic is my key revenue driver.

There are two main issues being flagged:

Desktop

"CLS issue: more than 0.25 (desktop)" i.e. content moving around after page load this appears to match up with the timeline of the decline in search traffic

Mobile

"CLS issue: more than 0.25 (desktop)": this was flagging until I turned off the announcement bar and now it has been resolved

"LCP issue: longer than 4s (mobile)" Basically a page speed issue

The deafening silence on this issue from Squarespace rings alarms bells. I've seen others comment that they receive 'vague comments' from the support team. I'm now seriously considering moving my website to another platform unless I get some reassurance that this is an issue they can resolve.

Anyone else seeing anything similar or any thoughts on causes/solutions?

I'd be surprised if a CORE WEB VITALS value is the sole reason for your traffic loss, but I'm not Google and I know how they do like to get people to jump through hoops.

It seems more probable that either someone has started paying for ads or some other design option on the Google Serps is the likely cause. I'm not sure the extent to which you can verify this. You might also, if you use google analytics look at which type of traffic shifted at the dates above, this can help you isolate whether it's desktop/mobile etc.

There is only so much you can do with SS optimisation, we're now left pretty much with assets we can't optimise - Unused JS bundled into the themes as they form part of a shared codebase, even though they are not used in the live site. Idem for some fonts loaded via CSS.

"Reduce the impact of third-party code Third-party code blocked the main thread for 2,470 ms" - these are all SS assets that cannot be accessed for example.

I have written to SS them to make aware of this and hope that it will get a look in at some point, this is particularly poignant if you are providing some scientific way of saying that the drop is caused by such things, and I would write to them.

For your own specific case I would be grateful if you can post any updates here.

Same issues with CLS and page speed/javascript. Getting really bad feedback from Google on CLS issues that seem baked into our theme.

Hi, We've had the same issue on our Squarespace site. Our organic search traffic has dropped dramatically and Google Console is showing a huge jump in pages suddenly listed as 'Needs Improvement' for CLS and LCP issues from 8th March.

Does anyone know if there as a Squarespace update which could have caused this? Doesnt look like there was a Google algorithm rollout.

Although Google is giving us Core Web Vitals stats now, we theoretically have until May 2021 until this starts to affect rankings:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-core-web-vitals-ranking-signals/387142/

So for now I'd be surprised if you're being penalised for not hitting the CWV targets.

It might be worth considering whether there were any significant changes to your content, backlink profile etc. that could have resulted in a dip in rankings? It could also be that your competitors upped their SEO game recently too. 

Another thing might be the fact that mobile-first indexing is due to be complete this month:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-first-indexing-deadline-march-2021-30974.html#:~:text=Google's revised mobile-first indexing,September 2020 to March 2021.

There have also been a few (unconfirmed) Google algorithm updates lately, which may also be affecting things.
Loads of variables to consider!

I do hope Squarespace give us some clarity on the Core Web Vitals issue before May though, as all Squarespace site owners stand to be negatively affected it. Good luck sorting the SEO issues out.

I'm also concerned by this. Thanks for the informative answers here. Hope SS does something about it.

After sending a panicky message to SS support I received the below message. Finally they have recognised that this is an issue and it is being treated as a priority.

I'm still extremely nervous that CWV is going to tank my business from May onwards. My competitors websites are all performing better than mine so SS need to pull something pretty special out of the bag.

Quote

Thanks for your patience. I'm an administrator here at Squarespace and I'll be working with you on this.

Our engineers are aware of some elements in the Core Web Vitals showing low scores on Squarespace sites. Specifically, it's related to how various Javascript and CSS files are loading -- the timing of them appears to trigger these scores.

I'm looking at a master document of releases that we're planning to address these issues, and we're making active progress as we speak. While I'm not able to give specific details, a couple of areas our team is focused on would be related to reducing the load of common/universal scripts, as well as improvements of dynamic loading, compression and caching. Hopefully this will significantly improve the general site loading and lead to much better CWV scores. 

Please note that we do not comment on an ETA for these fixes (exact or estimate), because solving time tends to vary. We need to investigate all variables and test them before we can confidently release updates. Finally, while this will certainly help scores, it's important to follow our guidelines for fast loading of content.

All of that said, this is being treated as a priority issue.

Thanks for sharing that message.

Unfortunately when Google says jump planet earth now says "how high?"

Thanks all

Same here.....