Does Google record Core Web Vital scores for all device types?
Firstly, yes, they do. All you need to do is go to this page (web.dev/measure) to see that for all sessions Google are recording and you will see that you can view your score for both Desktop and Mobile. Many online publishers have been left confused, and feeling that in order to be passing this new metric, both these scores need to be passing.
Are you saying I can be failing Google Core Web Vitals on Desktop AND be OK?
Secondly, yes. Obviously if your site is excessively slow, or is suffering from serious layout shift, the UX on your site will be recorded by Google and it’s likely that you will be sending back negative signals to Google’s algotrithm. But, importantly, this isn’t taken into consideration when it comes to the traffic boost that is offered by passing Core Web Vitals.
Why only Mobile?
Mobile Field data = Page Experience update (SEO). Desktop doesn’t matter, and neither does lab data. You can basically ignore those right now. (seriously, please just ignore them!)
So many collective hours of work has been sunk into passing these new metrics on desktop, when the reality is they are essentially irrelevant when it comes to this update. If you have an hour to kill, work on the mobile version of your site!
But what about my Web.dev Score?
Once again, the score IS NOT important. It is not a reflection of whether a site is passing core web vitals as it is calculated based on 6 metrics put together – only 2 of these are core web vitals, worth 40% of the score. I get it, scores are nice, and no one wants to see that they are failing, but the reality is you can be passing Core Web Vitals with a “poor” score. Focus on what’s important, and you will see that ranking boost.
These are big claims-can you back this up?
Yes. Visit this page, and scroll down. You can clearly see, on an official Google forumn, the only thing that matters right now are mobile scores. So drop your desktop Dev Work, and get your Mobile Site Passing Core Web Vitals. https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/86521401/core-web-vitals-page-experience-faqs?hl=en
So, long story short, focus on Mobile only for Core Web Vitals?
YES!
