The State of Web Vitals

LCP discovery

How the browser found the LCP resource: HTML, CSS, JS, preload, or an early-hints header.

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites Q2 2026 edition · Phone field outcomes
Metric LCP INP CLS
1

At a glance the headline numbers for LCP discovery

How the browser found the LCP resource: HTML, CSS, JS, preload, or an early-hints header.

6
Categories
176,552 sites
69.2%
Top share
html
100ms
Top INP
Median for html

The browser finds 69.2% of LCP images straight in the HTML. 0.8% hide behind JavaScript.

The State of Web Vitals · Q2 2026 · 189,915 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
2

LCP discovery who uses what, and how fast each group loads

Median INP
0
100ms
200ms
300ms
400ms
500ms
header81ms0% of sites
css96ms28% of sites
html100ms69% of sites
js103ms1% of sites
preload113ms2% of sites
103119ms0% of sites
VariantShare of sitesMedian
header 370 sites
0%
81ms
css 48,623 sites
28%
96ms
html 122,164 sites
69%
100ms
js 1,353 sites
1%
103ms
preload 4,020 sites
2%
113ms
103 22 sites
0%
119ms

Little daylight between the groups: every variant sits near 81ms median INP. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q2 2026 · 189,915 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
3

Passing INP per LCP discovery which group passes the INP most often

VariantSitesPassing INPINP
Header 0.2% 370 96% 81ms
103 0% 22 94% 119ms
Css 27.5% 48,623 94% 96ms
Html 69.2% 122,164 91% 100ms
Preload 2.3% 4,020 91% 113ms
Js 0.8% 1,353 90% 103ms
Good Needs Improvement Poor Sorted best-passing first · median colored by its own rating · pass = good INP (200ms at p75) · one value per site

96% of Header sites pass INP. Js trails 6 points behind. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q2 2026 · 189,915 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
4

Why this matters for the Core Web Vitals, and where to start fixing it

The browser can only download what it has discovered, and the LCP's load delay is mostly discovery time. An image in the HTML markup is found by the preload scanner in the first bytes of the document. A CSS background image stays invisible until the stylesheet downloads and applies. An image injected by JavaScript stays invisible until that script downloads, parses and runs.

That order is the fix list. Get the LCP image into the markup, or preload it when it cannot be. Discovery through JavaScript is the slowest possible path for the most important pixels on the page.

How does this affect the Core Web Vitals?

LCP discovery correlates with the LCP. With Header, 96% of sites pass the LCP. With JS, 69% do.

Go fix it LCP: resource load delay → Preload the LCP image → Background images are evil → How I lowered the LCP by 70 percent →
Related signals LCP image size → LCP element type → LCP origin → LCP image format → Chrome field data from 189,915 sites, representing millions of real page loads · How we measured