How to Fix Core Web Vitals Assessment Failed WordPress

If you recently came across the message “Core Web Vitals Assessment Failed” on Pagespeed Insights, your site didn't pass the core web vitals test. In other words, your website's “Core Web Vitals” test score is too low.

In this post, I will explain how you can improve your website's core web vitals score. As you read this post until the end, you will gain clarity on Core Web Vitals.

Fix to Core Web Vitals Assessment Failed WordPress

Now that you know what the Core Web Vitals test is, it's time to look at practical ways to improve your website's Core Web Vitals test score. Once you succeed, you should not see the “Core Web Vitals Assessment Failed” message on Pagespeed Insights.

Use NitroPack to pass Core Web Vitals Assessment.

NitroPack is an all-in-one speed performance optimization service for WordPress, and it has many features to make your website load quickly. I recently started using NitroPack to optimize the performance of my WordPress site, and I'm impressed with the results.

One of the things I like about NitroPack is the advanced caching mechanisms, which have helped improve my site's speed. The cache hit ratio is also very high, so my site's performance has improved even further. And the image optimization feature has helped reduce image size and improve load times.

But the best part about NitroPack is that it has helped me to pass the “Core Web Vitals” assessment based on field data. I struggled to pass this assessment before, but after using NitroPack, my Pagespeed score has improved significantly, and my site is running faster than ever.

In fact, according to the latest data from httparchive, NitroPack is outperforming competitors like WP Rocket and Cloudflare when it comes to passing the Core Web Vitals score. This is impressive and a testament to NitroPack's effectiveness at optimizing your site's performance.

NitroPack is also easy to set up, and the fast-quality support means that any issues or questions I have are quickly resolved. Plus, the pricing is transparent, and there are no upsells, so I always know exactly what I'm getting.

If you're a blogger like me and need help improving your site's speed, try NitroPack. You'll be impressed with the results!

Choose the Fastest WordPress Hosting to Reduce TTTB

TTFB is a crucial factor in improving LCP. You can test the TTFB of your website across 14 global locations through the KeyCDN tool. According to Google, a TTFB below 200ms is good.

Even if the TTFB of your website is close to 1000ms, it can be optimized. However, if it is more than 1 second, you must consider choosing a faster WP hosting or maybe the best TTFB hosting, depending on your budget.

Have the best WordPress cache settings.

The next best thing to do is to implement a great caching system. Even though many excellent caching plugins are available, WP Rocket is one of the best WordPress caching plugins.

Note: If you're using NitroPack, you don't need the WP Rocket plugin.

You will simply need to install the plugin from the plugin section on your WordPress dashboard. After that, you can get to the CACHE tab, and you need to ensure that the following options are enabled:

• Enable caching for mobile devices
• Separate cache files for mobile devices

However, since you will do it in the CDN, you must not enable the Minify (HTML, CSS & JS) under the FILE OPTIMIZATION tab. You can enable the following options:

• Combine Google Fonts files
• Remove query strings from static resources

Next, you must get to the MEDIA tab and enable some options. You must enable the following options:

• Enable for images
• Enable iframes and videos
• Replace YouTube iframe with preview image
• Disable Emoji

Prefetch DNS Requests is an advanced option that you must capitalize on. Using the feature can lower the number of HTTP requests and improve the load time for your website by making external files load faster.

Once you enter your site URL, the website will generate a list of domains that can be prefetched from the domain. You can copy and paste the list of domains into the Prefetch DNS Requests field. After that, you can hit the “SAVE CHANGES” button.

Try a Paid CDN

Even though you can start with a free CDN like Cloudflare's free, it's less effective than the paid version. If we consider the Cloudflare free version, it doesn't come with all the POP locations available in the paid version.

Hence, if you stick to the free Cloudflare, your website will have latency issues since the free Cloudflare delivers content across EU and US PoP locations. You must consider going for the Cloudflare paid version, which is $20 monthly.

Eliminate Unwanted Slow Loading Plugins

Did you know plugins can hamper the core web vitals of your website to a large extent? Hence, you must always check if unwanted plugins are installed on your WordPress dashboard. If a plugin is useless to you, you must immediately uninstall it.

Further, some plugins are slow loading and can largely hamper your site's performance. Query Monitor is an excellent plugin for finding out the plugins that make your WordPress website slow.

Once you have it installed and know what plugins are hampering your WordPress website's performance, you can uninstall them and find better alternatives to these plugins. Doing this will certainly improve your website's core web vitals.

Use an Image CDN service.

It's hard to imagine a website without images. While images are essential for making websites more interactive, they tend to make websites heavy and hamper their load time. This is where an image CDN service comes to play. An image CDN can largely resolve this issue by delivering adaptive images based on users' browsers. Besides, image CDNs also help load images from the Global CDN location only in the viewport. Another necessary functionality of Image CDN is automatic WebP conversion.

One excellent Image CDN is WP Compress, and the reason I recommend this CDN because it delivers images through Google CDN across the globe. Another good Image CDN is Optimole, which comes with comprehensive image optimization.

Eliminate Unwanted JavaScripts

If you want to improve the First Input Delay for your website, you must work on eliminating unwanted JavaScript from your WordPress website. You can visit your site from the Incognito mode on Chrome browser and use the Inspect Element.

You must click on Inspect Element and get into the Network tab. Next, you must select JS, and once you do this, Chrome will list all the JavaScripts on the page along with the time they take to load. If you see any script taking too long to load, consider removing it.

It shouldn't be difficult for you to find out the plugin associated with the script. You can remove the plugin and replace it with a better one. That way, you can eliminate unwanted JavaScripts for better First Input Delay.

Reduce JavaScript Execution

If you are using a plugin like TablePress, and even though you might use it on one or two posts, WordPress will load its JavaScript across all pages on the site, increasing the load time unnecessarily. Hence, ensuring that the JS is executed only when needed is essential. You can achieve this using the WordPress plugin, PerfMatters. However, it's a paid plugin.

WP Asset Clean Up is an excellent free alternative that works the same way as PerfMatters. Once you install any of these plugins, you will see a Script Managed each time you load a webpage on your website. You must click on the Script Manager and see the list of all the CSS/JS loaded on the page. You can turn the ones that you think are unwanted. Doing this will undoubtedly improve the core web vitals of your WordPress website.

Use JavaScript Minification and Compression

JavaScript plays a significant role in the website performance and core web vitals score. You have already seen a few ways to deal with JavaScript. Another wise thing you can do about JavaScripts on your website is minifying and compress them.

WP Rocket makes it exceptionally simple, and all you need to do is get to the JavaScript Files tab and enable Minify JavaScript files.

JavaScript Defer Parsing

It's time to discuss an advanced way of handling JavaScript to improve your WordPress website's performance, called Defer Parsing of JavaScript. You will find to enable this option in the WP Rocket plugin itself. To enable this option, you will need to get to the File Optimization tab and enable the following options:

• Load JavaScript deferred
• Safe Mode for jQuery (recommended)

Cumulative Layout Shift Optimization

There are a few things you can do to avoid layout shifts. You can add dimensions to ads, images, embeds, and iframes. Besides, you must try to lower the Dynamic content presence.

Further, you must ensure the actions wait for a network response before updating DOM. This is where the OMGF plugin comes to play and does a tremendous job of optimizing the Cumulative Layout Shift.

FAQs

What does “Core Web Vitals Assessment Failed” on Pagespeed Insights mean?

Many website owners have recently seen the “Core Web Vitals Assessment Failed” on Pagespeed Insights, meaning their websites didn't pass the core web vitals test, and their sites' performance needs to improve.

How can I improve the core web vitals score for my WordPress website?

If your website's core web vitals score is low, don't worry; you can improve it by following some effective methods. Here are some of the ways to enhance the core web vitals for your WordPress website:

• Select a reliable and fast hosting service
• Setup a powerful caching system for your WordPress website
• Use a paid CDN like StackPath with multiple Global PoPs locations
• Eliminate Unwanted Slow Loading Plugins
• Use Image CDN for image optimization
• Remove unwanted JavaScripts
• Use JavaScript minification
• Use JavaScript Defer Parsing

What is the Core Web Vitals test?

The Core Web Vitals test evaluates a website's performance based on field or real-world data. It's an essential indicator of a website's performance. Core Web Vitals consists of three parameters – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

The Largest Contentful Paint is the time to render the most significant content element in the viewport from when a user requests the URL. The First Input Delay is the time from a user's first interaction with a website to when the browser responds to the interaction. Cumulative Layout Shift is the total of all unexpected individual layout shift scores that occurred during the lifespan of the page. When the score is zero, it means there is no shifting.

In a Nutshell

The Core Web Vitals test is one of the most important tests to evaluate your site's performance. If your site doesn't get through the core web vitals test, it's a question of the site's performance, and you will need to work hard on improving the site's performance. I have explained the various ways you can do it. After trying all the recommended methods, you will experience excellent improvement in your WordPress website's Core Web Vitals score.