A technology company is urging businesses to meet Google's Core Web Vitals or face being left behind from online search results, or fork out more money to stay relevant.
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The web vitals measures if a website is fast, stable and responsive, with the score affecting its Google search ranking.
Google implemented the criteria last year, but a recent assessment of 1.8 million prominent web addresses found only 38 percent were passing all three Core Web Vitals.
Tech firm Raygun chief executive John-Daniel Trask said with the importance of online search results, no business could afford to ignore it.
"Historically, the reason you'd want to [implement core web vitals] would be to be nice to your users, which unfortunately is not something a lot of people prioritise.
"What Google is doing is they're bringing a bit of a stick to the game and saying: 'Look, if you're not going to address the fact that your website is annoying and frustrating to people using it, we're going to push you down the search results'," he said.
It would effectively drive up the costs to acquire customers and build awareness, Trask said.
He said a news website that improved its core web vitals saw a 27 percent jump in page views and an 18 percent rise in advertising revenue.
"No business can afford to ignore customer experience. Google has created urgency by making core web vitals a ranking factor, which can make or break a business, but long term, these metrics also help your customer to navigate, enjoy, and come back to your digital storefront."
Trask said the software industry had gone too far to be delivering poor experiences.
He said one of the issues was people putting too many advertising trackers and other scripts into web pages that slowed down the web experience.
"Not to pick on anybody, but I'd give an example of the Stuff website as one. That thing loads so many different widgets, adverts and things, I don't like going there."
Trask said no one was doing it out of malice, and simple fixes could include compressing images being loaded onto websites.