🔍 Understanding INP Core Web Vitals: A 2025 SEO Guide

While many SEO professionals focus heavily on traditional ranking signals like page speed and mobile optimization, one often-overlooked metric is INP (Interaction to Next Paint). As a key part of the Core Web Vitals, INP measures the time between a user's interaction with a page and the next visible update, making it a critical factor for user experience. Despite its importance, INP remains an underrated SEO ranking signal, often overshadowed by other metrics. However, with the increasing emphasis on user experience in search rankings, INP is becoming more significant and should be a focal point in your SEO strategy.

What is INP (Interaction to Next Paint)?

INP is a new Core Web Vital metric introduced by Google in March 2024. It measures the responsiveness of a web page based on how quickly it reacts visually after user interactions like clicks, taps, or key presses.

Unlike the older FID (First Input Delay), which only measured the delay for the first interaction, INP captures the responsiveness of all interactions—making it a much more accurate metric for real user experience.

🟢 What is a Good INP Score?

• Good: Less than 200 milliseconds
• Needs Improvement: Between 200–500 ms
• Poor: Over 500 ms

📏 How to Measure INP?

You can track and diagnose INP issues using these tools:

• PageSpeed Insights
• Chrome DevTools → Performance tab
• Lighthouse Reports
• Google Search Console → Core Web Vitals section

🛠️ How to Optimize INP

Here are a few practical tips to improve your INP score:

1. Minimize JavaScript execution time
   Clean up unused code and use code splitting.
   
   
2. Defer non-critical third-party scripts
   Load only what's necessary at page load.
   
   
3. Use efficient event handlers
   Avoid slow operations inside click/tap event listeners.
   
   
4. Break up long tasks
   Anything above 50ms should be optimized.
   
   
5. Lazy-load offscreen content
   Reduce initial page load time for better perceived performance.

🎯 Why INP Matters for SEO

With INP becoming a confirmed Core Web Vital, it's part of Google’s Page Experience signals. That means your site’s ranking potential can be directly impacted if users experience sluggish interactivity.

💬 Final Thoughts

Google’s algorithm updates continue to focus on user experience. INP is just the beginning of how search will evolve in the AI-driven and performance-obsessed era. By optimizing for INP today, you're not just future-proofing your rankings—you're delivering better digital experiences.