Difference Between Google PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals

If you're running an online business or planning to, you've probably come across the terms Google PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals. They're often mentioned in the same breath—and for good reason—but they are not the same thing.

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Understanding the difference between them, and how they work together, is essential if you want to build a fast, user-friendly, and search-engine-optimized website that keeps customers happy and drives conversions.

Let’s break it down in a way that’s simple and useful—especially for business owners who aren’t necessarily web developers.

What is Google PageSpeed Insights?

Google PageSpeed Insights (often abbreviated as PSI) is a free tool from Google designed to help you measure and improve the performance of your website. You simply enter your website’s URL, and it will generate a detailed report with scores and suggestions for how to make your site faster and more efficient.

At its core, PageSpeed Insights is all about understanding how well your website performs, both from a technical perspective and from the user’s point of view.

Once you run a test, you’ll receive a score from 0 to 100, with higher scores meaning better performance. Google breaks this down into four key categories:

Performance – Measures how fast your site loads and becomes interactive.
Accessibility – Checks if your site is usable by everyone, including people with disabilities.
Best Practices – Evaluates your code and web development standards.
SEO – Looks at how well your site is optimized for search engines.

PageSpeed Insights provides a snapshot of how your site is doing at that particular moment. It uses two types of data:

Lab data – Simulated performance results based on predefined settings (like using a slow mobile connection).
Field data – Real-world performance data from actual users, if available.

Included in this field data are the Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics that represent key aspects of the real user experience. But PageSpeed Insights can only display Core Web Vitals if your site has received enough traffic for Google to collect meaningful data.

What Are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are a set of standardized performance metrics that Google uses to measure how people experience your website in the real world. In other words, they track how fast, responsive, and visually stable your site is for actual visitors—not just in tests.

These vitals focus on three main areas:

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) – Measures how long it takes for the largest piece of content (like an image, video, or block of text) to load and appear on the screen. A good LCP score means your site feels fast and gives users what they’re looking for quickly.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) – Replaces the older FID (First Input Delay) and measures how responsive your site is when a user interacts with it. For example, when someone clicks a button or types in a form field, how fast does the page respond?
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) – Measures how much the content on your page unexpectedly shifts while it’s loading. Think of those moments when you try to click a button but the layout suddenly jumps—this metric tracks that kind of frustration.

Other important metrics related to performance include:

FCP (First Contentful Paint) – How quickly the first visible piece of content shows up on the screen. This could be a logo, text, or image—anything that tells the user the page is actually loading.
TTFB (Time to First Byte) – How long it takes for your browser to receive the first byte of data from your server. This tells you how responsive your server is. (This metric is currently considered experimental but still useful.)

These metrics are not just for developers—they directly affect your customers’ experience. And importantly, Google has made Core Web Vitals a part of its search ranking algorithm. That means better scores can help your site rank higher in search results.

So, How Are PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals Connected?

Here’s where things come together.

Google PageSpeed Insights is the tool you use to measure and improve your Core Web Vitals.

Core Web Vitals are the actual performance standards Google cares about. PageSpeed Insights is what helps you understand how your site measures up and what needs fixing.

Think of it this way:

Core Web Vitals = the health metrics (like your website's heart rate and blood pressure)
PageSpeed Insights = the doctor’s report showing those metrics and what you can do to improve them

PageSpeed Insights looks at your Core Web Vitals (when available) and also runs its own lab-based tests to estimate how your site is doing. Then, it gives you practical tips—like compressing images, removing unused scripts, or reducing server response time—to improve your site’s performance and, in turn, your Core Web Vitals scores.

In most cases, when you improve your PageSpeed Insights score, your Core Web Vitals improve as well. That leads to faster load times, smoother user interactions, and fewer layout issues—things that really matter to your customers.

Why This Matters for Your Online Business

If you're running an e-commerce store or any kind of online business, speed and usability are critical. Here’s why:

Faster websites mean more sales – Studies show that even a 1-second delay in page load time can lead to a significant drop in conversions.
Better performance reduces bounce rates – If your site takes too long to load, visitors are more likely to leave before seeing what you offer.
Higher scores improve your SEO – Google uses Core Web Vitals as part of its ranking algorithm, so better performance can mean more organic traffic.
A smooth user experience builds trust – When your website works well, customers are more likely to stick around, browse, and buy.

Think of your website as your digital storefront. Just like you wouldn’t want customers walking into a messy or slow-moving physical store, you want your online store to feel fast, polished, and easy to use.

In Conclusion

Google PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals are deeply connected, but they serve different purposes.

PageSpeed Insights is the tool you use to check and improve your site’s performance.
Core Web Vitals are the actual measurements Google uses to evaluate how real users experience your site.

By using PageSpeed Insights to monitor and optimize your Core Web Vitals, you're not just improving your website—you’re investing in your customers’ satisfaction and your business’s growth.

So if you haven’t checked your site yet, it’s a great time to start. It’s free, easy, and can lead to meaningful improvements in how your website performs and how well it converts visitors into customers.