If you want your website to feel fast and smooth, you must pay attention to inp. Short for Interaction to Next Paint, INP is one of Google’s newest ways to check how good your site feels to visitors. It is now an important part of Core Web Vitals. Moreover, good INP scores can help your SEO and user experience.
What is INP?
You might wonder, what is inp? INP stands for Interaction to Next Paint. It measures how quickly a web page responds to user actions. These actions can include clicks, taps, or keyboard input.
In simple words, interaction to next paint means: when a user clicks something, how soon does the page show a response on the screen? Faster is always better!
Fun Fact: Google now uses INP because old measures, like FID, were not complete enough.
Why Did Google Introduce INP?
Before INP, Google used FID (First Input Delay). However, FID only measured the first click’s delay. It missed what happened after.
Thus, inp google was born! It watches all interactions and checks the worst one. Therefore, it gives a full view of how a site truly feels to users.
Moreover, Google’s tests showed that fixing INP led to better user happiness!
How INP Works in Core Web Vitals
INP is now a big part of core web vitals inp scoring. It looks at every tap, click, and keypress. Then, it checks how long it takes for something to visibly change on the screen.
If one interaction is slow, your inp metric will be poor.
Important: INP is different from load time. It cares about after the page has loaded.
Thus, even beautiful sites must stay quick during use!
INP Thresholds Explained
Let’s understand the interaction to next paint thresholds:
- Good: 200 milliseconds or less.
- Needs Improvement: Between 200 ms and 500 ms.
- Poor: More than 500 milliseconds.
Example: If you tap “Buy Now” and wait over half a second to see a change, that’s a bad INP!
Google uses these thresholds across all websites. Therefore, hitting the “Good” range is very important.
How INP Impacts SEO
You may ask, “Does inp seo really matter?” Yes!
Since March 2024, INP officially replaced FID as the interactivity metric in web vitals inp. Thus, sites with bad INP may lose rankings.
Moreover, better INP scores often lead to higher engagement and lower bounce rates.
Pro Tip: Faster interactions mean users trust your site more. This builds stronger SEO over time!
How to Improve INP Score
Now let’s talk about how to improve inp:
- Reduce JavaScript: Too much JavaScript can slow reactions.
- Break Up Long Tasks: Tasks that block the browser should be split.
- Use Web Workers: Move heavy scripts off the main thread.
- Optimize Interaction Handlers: Code around taps and clicks must be lightweight.
- Reduce Third-Party Scripts: Ads, widgets, and trackers can hurt INP.
Remember: Improving INP is about making every click feel “instant.”
Moreover, Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool gives tailored advice based on real INP data.
How to Measure INP
There are several ways to measure inp web vitals:
- PageSpeed Insights: Shows lab and real-world INP scores.
- CrUX Reports: Chrome User Experience data helps.
- Web Vitals Extension: Real-time measurements in Chrome.
- Lighthouse: Advanced audits available.
Thus, you have many free tools to track interaction to next paint inp scores.
Common Issues that Affect INP
Some typical problems hurting web vitals inp are:
- Heavy JavaScript bundles.
- Lazy event handlers.
- Animations blocking clicks.
- Slow database queries.
In addition, bad hosting or poor server setups can add hidden delays.
Real-World Example
Imagine you tap “Play” on a video site. If the video starts quickly, your INP is good. However, if it loads late, buffers, or needs two taps, your INP score drops.
Thus, optimizing INP makes every part of your site feel alive and snappy!
FAQs About Interaction to Next Paint
What is Interaction to Next Paint (INP)?
INP measures how long it takes for a webpage to react visibly after a user clicks, taps, or presses a key.
How is INP different from FID?
FID only measured the first interaction delay. INP measures all interactions and finds the slowest.
What are the thresholds for INP?
Good: ≤ 200ms. Needs Improvement: 200–500ms. Poor: > 500ms.
Why is INP important for SEO?
INP is now part of Core Web Vitals. Google uses it as a ranking signal.
How can I check my INP score?
Use PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, or Chrome’s Web Vitals extension.
