Google Search Console has added a new report in its panel called INP a.k.a Interaction to Next Paint.
INP is a new core web vital metric introduced in 2022.
However, since then it was available as an experimental metric.
But now after two years of testing and gathering feedback, it is going to be effective from March 2024.
Google is introducing INP as a new core web vital metric by replacing the FID (First Input Delay).
What is Interaction to New Paint (INP)?
INP is a new core web vital metric that measures the overall responsiveness of a webpage.
A webpage contains different elements. For example, accordions, menus, buttons, etc.
After opening the webpage, users interact with these elements.
INP measures how these elements perform. Whether they are responsive or not. Whether they are working or not and so on.
If one of these elements takes more time to open or respond, that would be the final INP value for the respective webpage.
Take the below screenshot as an example to understand the concept of INP.
The above screenshot shows accordions to create a product Q&A.
If you see the accordions present on the left side, it is not responding correctly.
Some long tasks running on the backend of the webpage block it from opening.
This causes users to click on the accordion multiple times, but it opens and close unexpectedly.
So, INP measures the responsiveness of such elements present on a webpage.
What is a Good INP Value?
If a webpage has an INP value less than or equal to 200ms, then it is Good.
INP value falls in between 200ms to 500ms needs improvement.
However, Greater than 500ms is a poor INP value.
Is INP a Google Ranking Factor?
The Developer Relations Engineer at Google, Martin Splitt wrote:
“Great page experience involves more than Core Web Vitals. Good stats within the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console don’t guarantee good rankings.”
Martin Splitt, Developer Relations Engineer at Google
The first line means that Core Web Vitals metrics are not enough to measure a great page experience.
That’s because web development is evolving fastly in comparison to Google Search Bot.
I mean accordion was developed years ago. But now Google Search Bots understand the importance of measuring its responsiveness.
Although with the above lines, INP might not be the direct ranking factor but definitely an indirect one. Here is how.
Google says that “A Good Page Experience is part of Google’s overall ranking system”.
Now, INP improves the page experience. Because it tells the webmasters that some of their webpages are not working correctly in terms on some elements present on the webpage.
Once the webmaster sees a poor INP value for a webpage, he knows that some elements in that webpage is not working correctly. Then, he finally improves it and hence, providing a good page experience to the readers.
So, although INP is not a direct ranking factor but it definitely improves ranking by improving the page experience.
How does INP Report look in Google Search Console?
In the screenshot below, you can see how INP report looks in Google Search Console.
In the above screenshot, you see a list of URLs and the reason for triggering the INP issue.
For example, it says the INP issue occurred because some elements in the respective URL increase the INP value on the desktop to more than 200ms.
The report also shows the severity of issues so that you can prioritize which issue to resolve first.
A better approach is to fix URLs that need improvement first in comparison to poor URLs.
If your website doesn’t have any INP issues then the report will say: No INP Issues Detected.
You can access INP report in search console by following this link.
So this is it for the article. INP is a new core web vital metric that helps webmasters to improve the page experience. Although, Google starts adding INP reports in Search Console but I think it will become impactful after March 2024. What do you think? Let me know in the comments down below.
