There’s a growing gap between how Core Web Vitals are marketed to SEOs and how they actually behave in the real world. For most sites, Core Web Vitals (CWV) simply do not move rankings in any meaningful, repeatable way. They are hygiene, not a growth lever.
At Primary Position, we treat CWV as UX housekeeping—not as a primary ranking factor, not as a magic fix, and definitely not as the thing you should pour half your SEO budget into.
What Google Actually Says About Core Web Vitals
If CWV were truly a major ranking factor, you’d expect Google to say so clearly and consistently. Instead, every time they talk about it, they downgrade expectations.
-
Google representatives have repeatedly said you shouldn’t expect “big ranking changes” from Core Web Vitals alone.
-
Statements around the Page Experience and CWV rollouts emphasize that they are one of many minor signals, and that relevance and content quality can easily override poor vitals.
-
Even documentation that acknowledges CWV as a ranking factor stresses it’s weak and situational, often described as a potential tiebreaker rather than a driver.
In other words, Google itself keeps telling you: yes, CWV exist; no, they are not where ranking wins come from.
Core Web Vitals – Google Search Video
Video: Google says it will never show a faster page over a more relevant page – 40s mark
Primary Position’s View: CWV Are Hygiene, Not Strategy
On primaryposition.com, we’ve already laid out why PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals are not the ranking factor many tools and agencies claim they are.
Our approach boils down to:
-
Get CWV to “good enough,” then stop obsessing.
We view CWV as part of basic UX and technical hygiene—things you fix so the site is usable, not so you can magically jump 20 positions. -
Don’t let CWV dominate audit priorities.
In our audit content, we specifically warn against over‑indexing on lab scores and waterfall charts while ignoring information architecture, query intent, and content gaps—the things that actually change visibility. -
Treat CWV as a UX sub‑topic, not a ranking pillar.
In our AI/AEO and vertical SEO content, CWV are mentioned under general “fast, clean, mobile‑first experience,” while the strategic levers are topic clustering, intent coverage, and entity‑driven content.
For us, “CWV as SEO strategy” is a category error. It’s like treating SSL or mobile‑friendliness as your primary competitive edge in 2026. It should be there—but so should everyone else’s.
Practitioner Reality: You Can Rank While Failing CWV
Step away from Google’s PR and look at what experienced SEOs see in the wild.
-
In r/TechSEO and other technical communities, experienced practitioners openly say Core Web Vitals don’t materially enhance rankings and that it’s common to see high‑ranking pages failing CWV.
-
Most Reddit SEOs point out that Google will always prioritize relevance over speed, and that many top‑ranking sites score poorly on CWV despite out‑ranking “green” competitors.
-
The recurring pattern: improving CWV can make the site feel better, but rankings don’t suddenly spike unless you were already in a razor‑thin tie with an equally relevant competitor.
If CWV were a heavyweight signal, you’d see consistent rank movement across big sample sizes when sites improve them. That’s not what the data—or the SERPs—show.
Barry Schwartz and the Industry’s “Nuanced” Answer
Barry Schwartz has covered CWV from the beginning, and his reporting consistently reinforces the “small factor” narrative.
-
Articles on rank volatility and CWV note that Google is doubtful you’ll see big ranking drops purely from poor Core Web Vitals.
-
Interviews and discussions framed CWV as “worth preparing for,” but with the clear caveat that you shouldn’t sacrifice content and links just to shave milliseconds off load times.
-
Coverage of Google comments repeatedly emphasizes that CWV is more about user experience and perceived quality than a top‑tier ranking lever.
The net result: even the people who originally amplified the CWV hype now mostly talk about it as a minor quality signal, not a core part of SEO strategy.
Why It Feels Like “Core Web Vitals Just Don’t Matter”
When you synthesize Google’s comments, tool documentation, and practitioner experience, a clear pattern emerges.
-
CWV behave like a weak, conditional signal
Most analyses classify them as a soft tie‑breaker at best, one tiny input within a broader “page experience” bundle. -
Google explicitly downplays them
Support docs and spokesperson quotes make it clear that you usually won’t see ranking shifts solely from CWV improvements, especially when content and intent match differ across pages. -
Real‑world data rarely shows dramatic impact
YouTube breakdowns and case studies—even ones framed as “CWV for SEO”—often admit that rankings do not meaningfully change after cleanup, except in edge cases.
So when SEOs say “Core Web Vitals just don’t matter,” what they mean is: they don’t matter proportionally to the hype, the tooling focus, or the budgets being thrown at them.
