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 · Desktop 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
49ms
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 · desktop 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
css48ms28% of sites
html49ms69% of sites
js53ms1% of sites
preload57ms2% of sites
header58ms0% of sites
10374ms0% of sites
VariantShare of sitesMedian
css 48,623 sites
28%
48ms
html 122,164 sites
69%
49ms
js 1,353 sites
1%
53ms
preload 4,020 sites
2%
57ms
header 370 sites
0%
58ms
103 22 sites
0%
74ms

Little daylight between the groups: every variant sits near 48ms median INP. computed

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

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

VariantSitesPassing INPINP
103 0% 22 100% 74ms
Header 0.2% 370 100% 58ms
Js 0.8% 1,353 99% 53ms
Css 27.5% 48,623 99% 48ms
Html 69.2% 122,164 99% 49ms
Preload 2.3% 4,020 99% 57ms
Good Needs Improvement Poor Sorted best-passing first · median colored by its own rating · pass = good INP (200ms at p75) · one value per site

No variant stands out: pass rates sit between 99% and 100%. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q2 2026 · 189,915 sites · desktop 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, 90% of sites pass the LCP. With JS, 77% 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