Document lifecycle (lab)

Lab document lifecycle: DOM interactive, DOM complete, load event.

LCP INP CLS

At a glance the headline numbers for Document lifecycle (lab)

Lab document lifecycle: DOM interactive, DOM complete, load event.

384ms

Median (p50)

185,361 sites

859ms

p75

12.4s

p99

Long tail

The typical page reaches DOM interactive after 384ms in the lab.

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

Distribution & median LCP site count and median LCP at each level of document lifecycle (lab) — dom interactive

0ms 750ms 1500ms 2250ms 3000ms

2.5s

0 32026 64052

0–249 250–499 500–749 750–999 1000–1249 1250–1499 1500–1749 1750–1999 2000+

Good (≤2.5s) Needs improvement Poor (>4s) Site count

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

Passing LCP by document lifecycle (lab) — dom interactive which level passes the LCP most often

Document lifecycle (lab) — dom interactiveSitesPassing LCPLCP

0–249 64,052 90% 1.2s

250–499 45,208 90% 1.4s

500–749 22,832 86% 1.6s

750–999 13,794 81% 1.8s

1000–1249 9,160 75% 2.0s

1250–1499 6,418 67% 2.1s

1500–1749 4,500 59% 2.3s

1750–1999 3,235 52% 2.5s

2000+ 16,162 50% 2.5s

Good Needs Improvement Poor Faded rows: under 100 sites

Document lifecycle (lab) — dom interactive 384ms. p75 859ms. p99 12.4s. At the low end (0–249ms): LCP 1.2s. At the high end (2000+ms): LCP 2.5s. computed

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

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

The document lifecycle is the old way of measuring pages, and it still says useful things. DOM interactive marks the HTML fully parsed. DOM complete waits for the subresources. The load event is the official end of loading, and everything that listens for it (analytics, widgets, third-party tags) starts there.

A long gap between interactive and complete means resource weight, not markup. These milestones do not map onto user experience the way the vitals do, which is why they were replaced. But a page with a slow lifecycle does not produce fast vitals.

How does this affect the Core Web Vitals?

Document lifecycle (lab) correlates with the LCP. Where the DOM interactive is low, 90% of sites pass the LCP. Where it is high, 50% do. The decline is gradual. There is no point where sites suddenly start failing.

Go fix it How we measured → Head vs footer JavaScript →

Related signals Total Blocking Time (lab) → Main-thread CPU (lab) → Lab paint timeline → Chrome field data from 189,915 sites, representing millions of real page loads · How we measured

Live queries (4) — admin only

Query #1: 358.1 ms

SELECT COUNT(*) AS count,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive, 0.10) AS p10,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive, 0.25) AS p25,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive, 0.50) AS p50,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive, 0.75) AS p75,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive, 0.90) AS p90,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive, 0.99) AS p99
            FROM sites WHERE m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive IS NOT NULL;

Query #2: 323.7 ms

SELECT CASE WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 0 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 250 THEN 0 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 250 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 500 THEN 1 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 500 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 750 THEN 2 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 750 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 1000 THEN 3 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 1000 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 1250 THEN 4 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 1250 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 1500 THEN 5 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 1500 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 1750 THEN 6 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 1750 AND m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive < 2000 THEN 7 WHEN m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive >= 2000 THEN 8 END AS bucket_idx, COUNT(*) AS n,
            quantile_disc(crux."all".lcp, 0.5) AS median,
            COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE crux."all".lcp IS NOT NULL AND crux."all".lcp <= 2500) * 1.0 / NULLIF(COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE crux."all".lcp IS NOT NULL), 0) AS good_pct
            FROM sites WHERE m.synthetic.document.dom_interactive IS NOT NULL GROUP BY bucket_idx;

Query #3: 14.1 ms

SELECT COUNT(*) AS count,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_complete, 0.10) AS p10,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_complete, 0.25) AS p25,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_complete, 0.50) AS p50,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_complete, 0.75) AS p75,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_complete, 0.90) AS p90,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.dom_complete, 0.99) AS p99
            FROM sites WHERE m.synthetic.document.dom_complete IS NOT NULL;

Query #4: 14.5 ms

SELECT COUNT(*) AS count,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.load, 0.10) AS p10,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.load, 0.25) AS p25,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.load, 0.50) AS p50,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.load, 0.75) AS p75,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.load, 0.90) AS p90,
            quantile_disc(m.synthetic.document.load, 0.99) AS p99
            FROM sites WHERE m.synthetic.document.load IS NOT NULL;

JSON file lookups (4)

                    20260625/meta.json
                    0.02 ms
                

                    20260625/types.json
                    0.58 ms
                

                    20260625/loaf-scripts.json
                    1.34 ms
                

                    20260625/menu.json
                    0.21 ms
                