---
title: "Page Speed & Google Rankings 2026: 37,036-Site Study"
description: "Page-one results pass Core Web Vitals 47.6 percent of the time versus 44.2 on page two, and the gap widens to 7.6 points among competitive sites."
lang: en
json-ld: |
[
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two",
"datePublished": "2026-06-12",
"dateModified": "2026-07-04",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Matt Suffoletto",
"jobTitle": "Performance Optimization Expert",
"url": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/author/matt-suffoletto"
}
},
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "BreadcrumbList",
"itemListElement": [
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 1,
"name": "Home",
"item": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/"
},
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 2,
"name": "Resources",
"item": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources"
},
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 3,
"name": "Data Studies",
"item": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies"
},
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 4,
"name": "Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two"
}
]
},
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Dataset",
"name": "Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two",
"description": "Page-one results pass Core Web Vitals 47.6 percent of the time versus 44.2 on page two, and the gap widens to 7.6 points among competitive sites.",
"url": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/speed-vs-google-rankings",
"creator": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "PageSpeed Matters",
"url": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com"
},
"datePublished": "2026-06-12",
"dateModified": "2026-07-04",
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"isAccessibleForFree": true,
"creativeWorkStatus": "Published",
"variableMeasured": "Core Web Vitals pass rate and web performance metrics",
"measurementTechnique": "Chrome UX Report (CrUX) field data joined to the top 20 organic Google results for 9,553 keywords"
},
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Does page speed affect Google rankings?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "47.6% of Page-One Results Pass Core Web Vitals vs 44.2% on Page Two."
}
},
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How was this measured?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Chrome UX Report (CrUX) field data joined to the top 20 organic Google results for 9,553 keywords (June 2026). 37,036 unique websites analyzed across 64,864 ranking positions with field data."
}
}
]
}
]
---
[](/)
- [Benefits](/why-speed-matters)
- [Services](/services)
- [ROI Calculator](/roi)
- [Pricing](/pricing)
- [Proof](/proof)
- [Resources](/resources)
- [About](/about)
[Speed Audit](/contact)
[Let's Talk](/contact)
[](/)
[Benefits](/why-speed-matters)[Services](/services)[ROI Calculator](/roi)[Pricing](/pricing)[Proof](/proof)[Resources](/resources)[About](/about)
Popular Services
[
Core Web Vitals Optimization ](/services/core-web-vitals-optimization)[
WordPress Speed Optimization ](/services/wordpress-speed-optimization)[
WooCommerce Speed Optimization ](/services/woocommerce-speed-optimization)[
Shopify Speed Optimization ](/services/shopify-speed-optimization)[
Wix Speed Optimization ](/services/wix-speed-optimization)[
BigCommerce Speed Optimization ](/services/bigcommerce-speed-optimization)[
Webflow Speed Optimization ](/services/webflow-speed-optimization)[
Squarespace Speed Optimization ](/services/squarespace-speed-optimization)
[Book a Call](/contact)
[Home](/) [Resources](/resources) [Data Studies](/resources/data-studies) Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two
Data Study · SEO
# Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two
Written by [Matt Suffoletto](/resources/author/matt-suffoletto)
Published June 12, 2026 · Updated July 4, 2026 22 min read
Share
[](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings&text=Page%20Speed%20and%20Google%20Rankings%3A%20Page%20One%20Passes%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2047.6%25%20vs%2044.2%25%20on%20Page%20Two)[](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings)[](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings)[](https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings&title=Page%20Speed%20and%20Google%20Rankings%3A%20Page%20One%20Passes%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2047.6%25%20vs%2044.2%25%20on%20Page%20Two)
On This Page
- [Key Findings](#key-findings "Key Findings")
- [How we built the dataset](#how-we-built-the-dataset "How we built the dataset")
- [Finding 1](#finding-1-faster-pages-rank-higher-and-the-gap-widens-at-the-top "Finding 1")
- [Finding 2](#finding-2-among-competitive-sites-the-speed-gap-is-biggest "Finding 2")
- [Finding 3](#finding-3-most-ranking-pages-are-failing-core-web-vitals "Finding 3")
- [Finding 4](#finding-4-the-speed-to-rank-link-survives-popularity-adjustment "Finding 4")
- [Finding 5](#finding-5-loading-speed-is-the-lever-that-moves "Finding 5")
- [Finding 6](#finding-6-what-fast-enough-looks-like-in-your-industry "Finding 6")
- [Finding 7](#finding-7-the-benchmarks-to-beat "Finding 7")
- [Business impact beyond rankings](#business-impact-beyond-rankings "Business impact beyond rankings")
- [About the data](#about-the-data-and-its-limits "About the data")
- [How this fits](#how-this-fits-with-the-rest-of-the-research "How this fits")
- [Methodology and citation](#methodology-and-citation "Methodology and citation")
- [Embed & cite](#embed "Embed & cite")
- [FAQ](#faq "FAQ")
Share this post
[](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings&text=Page%20Speed%20and%20Google%20Rankings%3A%20Page%20One%20Passes%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2047.6%25%20vs%2044.2%25%20on%20Page%20Two)[](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings)[](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings)[](https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fspeed-vs-google-rankings&title=Page%20Speed%20and%20Google%20Rankings%3A%20Page%20One%20Passes%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2047.6%25%20vs%2044.2%25%20on%20Page%20Two)
Page-one results pass Core Web Vitals 47.6% of the time vs 44.2% on page two; among competitive sites the gap widens to 7.6 points.
Analysis of 37,036 sites · CrUX, June 2026
## Methodology & Source
Data source
Chrome UX Report (CrUX) field data joined to the top 20 organic Google results for 9,553 keywords
Collection date
June 2026
Notes
37,036 unique websites analyzed across 64,864 ranking positions with field data.
## Key Findings
1. 1. [**47.6%** of page-one results pass Core Web Vitals vs **44.2%** on page two; the top three positions pass **50.8%**. ](#finding-1-faster-pages-rank-higher-and-the-gap-widens-at-the-top) Copy stat
2. 2. [Among the most competitive sites, page-one pass rate is **46.7%** vs **39.1%** on page two, a **7.6-point** gap (95% CI 6.5–8.8). ](#finding-2-among-competitive-sites-the-speed-gap-is-biggest) Copy stat
3. 3. [**52%** of page-one results fail Core Web Vitals; even at position #1 only **49.2%** pass. ](#finding-3-most-ranking-pages-are-failing-core-web-vitals) Copy stat
4. 4. [Loading is the biggest failure point: among failing ranking pages, **67%** fail on LCP and **60%** on INP versus **42%** on CLS. ](#finding-5-loading-speed-is-the-lever-that-moves) Copy stat
5. 5. [Pass rates by vertical span **67% (legal)** to **33% (travel)**, a 34-point industry spread. ](#finding-6-what-fast-enough-looks-like-in-your-industry) Copy stat
6. 6. [The median top-20 ranking page: LCP **2.1 s**, INP **152 ms**, TTFB **813 ms**, CLS **0.02**. ](#finding-7-the-benchmarks-to-beat) Copy stat
## How we built the dataset
The study starts from search queries rather than from a list of popular websites, because a rankings study needs ranking positions, and a top-sites list tells you nothing about what those sites rank for.
**Keywords.** We assembled 9,553 keywords stratified across ten commercial verticals (ecommerce, software, finance, legal, health, real estate, travel, education, home services, and general information) and three search-volume bands.
**Search results.** For each keyword we pulled the top 20 organic results, producing 170,017 ranking positions across 122,650 unique URLs and 39,689 unique domains. We used a third-party SERP API on Google US, mobile, to avoid scraping Google directly.
**Speed.** For every ranking URL we queried the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), the same real-user field data Google's page-experience systems draw on. We captured the 75th-percentile values for Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, Time to First Byte, and First Contentful Paint, along with a pass or fail flag for all three Core Web Vitals. Field data existed for 64,864 ranking positions, covering 37,036 unique websites. That is the analysis set behind every speed number in this report.
**Controls.** We attached each domain's Tranco popularity rank so we could test whether any speed advantage was really just popular sites being fast.
Coverage note: 38% of ranking URLs had CrUX field data, higher near the top of the results. Why that works in a competitor's favor rather than against it is covered in the limitations section.
## Finding 1: Faster pages rank higher, and the gap widens at the top
The share of ranking pages that pass all three Core Web Vitals climbs as you move up the results.
Page-one results (positions 1 through 10) pass Core Web Vitals 47.6% of the time. Page-two results (11 through 20) pass 44.2%. The top three positions pass at the highest rate, 50.8%, and even the single most contested slot, position #1, passes just under half the time at 49.2%, ahead of the page-one field as a whole. The trend points clearly upward toward the top of the results.
Raw load time tells the same story. The median real-user LCP improves from 2,171 milliseconds on page two to 2,099 milliseconds on page one. First Contentful Paint follows the same curve (1,708 ms on page two versus 1,628 ms on page one), as does Time to First Byte (827 versus 796 milliseconds).
The differences in the middle of the pack are small. But the direction never wavers, and it gets stronger as you approach the positions that actually drive clicks.
47.6%
Share of page-one Google results that pass all three Core Web Vitals, versus 44.2% on page two. Copy stat
Core Web Vitals pass rate by Google ranking bucket
Top 3
50.8%
Position #1
49.2%
Page one (1–10)
47.6%
Page two (11–20)
44.2%
Source: PageSpeed Matters analysis of 64,864 ranking positions with CrUX field data, June 2026.
These are observational field results; association, not causation.
Copy chart embed Download PNG
## Finding 2: Among competitive sites, the speed gap is biggest
When we split results by how competitive the site is, using popularity as the proxy, the speed advantage is far from uniform. It is largest among the most popular, highest-traffic sites.
Among those top-tier sites (roughly the most popular bracket by Tranco rank), page-one results pass Core Web Vitals 46.7% of the time versus 39.1% on page two. That is a gap of nearly eight points, with a 95% confidence interval of 6.5 to 8.8 points on tens of thousands of observations. As you move into less competitive results, the gap narrows toward zero.
This is also the subgroup where the data is hardest to fully untangle, because the highest-traffic sites are exactly the ones most affected by the measurement quirks described later. Google has described its page-experience signal as a tiebreaker between otherwise-comparable results, and the place that tiebreaker should matter most is the place we see the widest gap.
7.6 pts
The Core Web Vitals pass-rate gap between page one and page two among the most competitive sites (95% CI 6.5–8.8). Copy stat
## Finding 3: Most ranking pages are failing Core Web Vitals
More than half of the pages currently outranking any given site fail Core Web Vitals.
Page-one results pass just 47.6% of the time, which means 52% fail. Even at position #1, only 49.2% pass all three metrics. Passing Core Web Vitals is not a requirement to rank, and failing them is not a wall that keeps a page off page one.
The right way to read that is as an opening: most competitors have left speed untouched. This is one of the few ranking inputs where the field is wide open.
52%
Share of page-one Google results that fail Core Web Vitals, the opening for a site that passes. Copy stat
## Finding 4: The speed-to-rank link survives popularity adjustment
The obvious objection to any speed-and-rankings finding is that fast pages might rank well only because big, authoritative sites happen to be fast. We tested that by adjusting for each site's popularity. When we do, the speed-to-rank relationship does not shrink. It moves from a raw correlation of +0.087 to +0.116 after the adjustment.
Popularity is an imperfect stand-in for the link, relevance, and brand signals Google actually uses, and it is partly downstream of ranking itself, so we treat the result as supporting evidence rather than proof. But the direction is consistent: comparing sites of similar standing, the faster ones rank a little higher.
## Finding 5: Loading speed is the lever that moves
Every Core Web Vital correlates with rank in the same direction, but they are not equal. We calculated the correlation between position and each metric inside every keyword's own results, then averaged across roughly 3,900 keywords.
Largest Contentful Paint led at +0.090, followed by Time to First Byte at +0.080, then Cumulative Layout Shift at +0.033 and Interaction to Next Paint at +0.023. These are small correlations. An r near 0.09 means speed explains under 1% of the variation in rankings on the open web. This is a faint but consistent signal, not a dominant one.
Loading is also where pages break. Most ranking pages clear visual stability (77% pass CLS), but loading and interactivity are tighter, with 63% passing LCP and 63% passing INP. Among the pages that fail Core Web Vitals outright, 67% fail on LCP and 60% on INP, versus 42% on CLS.
67%
Share of failing ranking pages whose failure is driven by LCP, the top failure mode by a wide margin. Copy stat
Share of ranking pages passing each Core Web Vital (mobile)
CLS (visual stability)
77%
LCP (loading)
63%
INP (interactivity)
63%
Source: PageSpeed Matters analysis of top-20 ranking pages with CrUX field data, June 2026.
Ranking pages that fail Core Web Vitals overwhelmingly fail on LCP and INP, not CLS.
Copy chart embed Download PNG
## Finding 6: What "fast enough" looks like in your industry
Speed targets should be set against your sector, not against the whole web. The pass rate of pages that actually rank ranges from about 67% in legal down to 33% in travel.
Legal (67%), health (55%), education (49%), home services (49%), and finance (49%) sit at the faster end. Real estate (42%), ecommerce (42%), general information (41%), software (40%), and travel (33%) sit at the slower end. Script-heavy industries like travel and software are home to the slowest pages that still manage to rank, which suggests other signals carry more weight there.
The strength of the speed-to-rank link also shifts by sector. It is a little stronger in real estate (+0.134), health (+0.125), and general-interest queries (+0.115), and weakest in finance (+0.044), though all of these are small and carry the same caveats as the rest of the study.
## Finding 7: The benchmarks to beat
A profile of what a typical page in Google's top 20 looks like, so there are concrete numbers to measure against.
The median ranking page loads its main content (LCP) in about 2.1 seconds, responds to interaction (INP) in 152 milliseconds, holds layout stable at a 0.02 CLS, and returns its first byte (TTFB) in 813 milliseconds, with First Contentful Paint around 1.66 seconds.
Beat those figures and a page is already ahead of the typical result it competes with. Pull comfortably under them, toward Google's "good" thresholds of 2.5-second LCP, 200-millisecond INP, and 0.1 CLS, and it is in the top tier of the field. For the full playbook that gets a page from average to top-tier, read [our guide to page speed and SEO](/resources/guides/ultimate-page-speed-seo-guide).
## Business impact beyond rankings
The ranking case is the smaller half of the argument. Google has treated Core Web Vitals as confirmed ranking signals since 2021, and continues to weight page experience as part of its core systems ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitals)). The larger and better-established effect is on what visitors do once they arrive.
Research from [Portent](https://www.portent.com/blog/analytics/research-site-speed-hurting-everyones-revenue.htm) found that a site loading in one second converts at 3.05%, dropping to 0.41% at five seconds, and that each additional second of load time can cut conversions by up to 7%. [Think with Google](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/mobile-bounce-rate-statistics/) reports that 53% of mobile visitors abandon a site that takes longer than three seconds to load. Deloitte's **Milliseconds Make Millions** study found that improving mobile load time by a tenth of a second lifted retail conversions by around eight percent.
The ranking effect is small but real. The conversion and revenue effect is large and well-documented.
## About the data, and its limits
This is observational research, so it shows a consistent association between speed and rank rather than proof that speed alone moves a page. Two things give that association weight: it holds after we adjust for site popularity, and Google has publicly confirmed that page experience is a ranking signal.
The limitation worth understanding in detail is coverage. Google's field data only exists for pages that get enough real traffic, so 38% of the ranking URLs in the sample had data, and that coverage is higher near the top of the results: 46% of position-#1 URLs have field data, falling to 35% at position 20.
For a competitive site the bias runs in the reader's favor. The pages the study leaves out are low-traffic also-rans, not the rivals a competitive site measures itself against. Blending millions of low-traffic pages into a web-wide average dilutes the effect, so the gaps in real competitive results are likely larger than the numbers reported here.
Two smaller notes: URL-level and origin-level field data were combined, and the signal is clearer in URL-level data (+0.086 LCP-to-position correlation, versus +0.031 for origin-level). The SERP is a single snapshot in time, while the field data is a trailing 28-day aggregate.
## How this fits with the rest of the research
The pattern here lines up with what we see in adjacent field data. Just under half of the mobile web passes Core Web Vitals in our [Core Web Vitals pass rates study](/resources/data-studies/core-web-vitals-pass-rates), so a page that passes is already ahead of the typical result Google returns. And because Google grades page experience on mobile field data, the [mobile vs desktop speed gap study](/resources/data-studies/mobile-vs-desktop-speed-gap) is a useful reminder that the ranking assessment applies to the slower of the two devices, not the faster one.
## Methodology and citation
**Sample.** 9,553 keywords stratified across ten verticals and three search-volume bands. Top 20 organic results per keyword, for 170,017 ranking positions across 122,650 unique URLs and 39,689 domains.
**Ranking data.** Third-party SERP API, Google US, mobile, collected within a tight window.
**Speed data.** [Chrome UX Report](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/crux) API, 75th-percentile real-user field data for LCP, INP, CLS, TTFB, and FCP, plus a Core Web Vitals pass or fail flag. Field data existed for 64,864 ranking positions covering 37,036 unique websites.
**Controls.** Tranco popularity rank per domain, used to adjust the pooled speed-to-rank correlation.
**Limitations.** Observational data (association, not causation). Field-data coverage is 38% of URLs and weighted toward higher positions. URL-level and origin-level CrUX were combined. The SERP is a single snapshot; field data is a trailing 28-day aggregate. Effect sizes are small in absolute terms and largest within the most competitive subgroup.
**How to cite this study.** PageSpeed Matters, "We Analyzed 37,000 Websites: Site Speed vs Google Rankings," June 2026.
**Third-party figures referenced for business-impact context are drawn from Google Search Central, Portent, Think with Google, and Deloitte Digital, each linked inline. All ranking and speed figures are from our own dataset.**
## Embed this research
Paste this on your site to embed the chart. It links back to the source automatically.
Source: Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two - PageSpeed Matters
Copy embed code
## Cite this study
APA Copy
Matt Suffoletto. (2026). Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two. PageSpeed Matters. https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/speed-vs-google-rankings
Plain link Copy
Page Speed and Google Rankings: Page One Passes Core Web Vitals 47.6% vs 44.2% on Page Two - PageSpeed Matters - https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/speed-vs-google-rankings
Download the data (CSV)
## Frequently asked questions
### Does page speed affect Google rankings?
47.6% of Page-One Results Pass Core Web Vitals vs 44.2% on Page Two.
### How was this measured?
Chrome UX Report (CrUX) field data joined to the top 20 organic Google results for 9,553 keywords (June 2026). 37,036 unique websites analyzed across 64,864 ranking positions with field data.
## Related studies
- [Benchmarks 49.1% of the Mobile Web Passes Core Web Vitals in 2026 ](/resources/data-studies/core-web-vitals-pass-rates)
- [Benchmarks Website Speed by Industry: Government Passes 78.9%, Tech and SaaS 10% ](/resources/data-studies/fastest-slowest-industries)
- [Global Website Speed by Country: Sweden Passes 70.8%, Nigeria 7.8% ](/resources/data-studies/website-speed-by-country)
- [Local Local Business Website Speed: 52.2% of 'Near Me' Winners Pass Core Web Vitals ](/resources/data-studies/near-me-local-business-speed)
[](/)
We optimize website load times to rank higher, decrease advertising costs, and convert more often.
Nashville, TN
[](https://www.linkedin.com/company/pagespeed-matters/)[](https://www.instagram.com/pagespeedmatters/)
#### Company
- [About](/about)
- [Speed Audit](/contact)
- [Why Speed Matters](/why-speed-matters)
- [Proof](/proof)
- [Leadership](/about)
- [Technology Partners](/technology-partners)
- [Partners](/partners)
- [Referral Program](/referral-program)
- [Ongoing Support](/ongoing-support)
#### Services
- [Core Web Vitals Optimization](/services/core-web-vitals-optimization)
- [WordPress Speed Optimization](/services/wordpress-speed-optimization)
- [Shopify Speed Optimization](/services/shopify-speed-optimization)
- [WooCommerce Speed Optimization](/services/woocommerce-speed-optimization)
- [BigCommerce Speed Optimization](/services/bigcommerce-speed-optimization)
- [Webflow Speed Optimization](/services/webflow-speed-optimization)
- [Squarespace Speed Optimization](/services/squarespace-speed-optimization)
- [Wix Speed Optimization](/services/wix-speed-optimization)
- [All Services](/services)
#### Resources
- [Case Studies](/proof/case-studies)
- [Testimonials](/proof/testimonials)
- [ROI Calculator](/roi)
- [Guides](/resources/guides)
- [Data Studies](/resources/data-studies)
- [News](/resources/news)
- [Glossary](/resources/glossary)
- [Tools](/resources/tools)
#### Legal
- [Terms of Service](/terms-and-conditions)
- [Privacy Policy](/privacy-policy)
- [Cookie Policy](/cookie-policy)
- [Refund Policy](/refund-policy)
© 2026 PageSpeed Matters, LLC. All rights reserved.
For AI assistants: [/llms.txt](/llms.txt) · [/llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt)