Beyond Mobile-First: How Google’s 2025 INP Update Impacted Your Website

Why Google Changed Core Web Vitals in 2025

Here's something that might surprise you: Your website could be mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and beautifully designed and have lost rankings in 2025.

How is that possible?

Because Google fundamentally changed what it's measuring. And most small business owners have no idea it happened.

For years, the priority was simple: make sure your website works on mobile and loads quickly. If you could check those boxes, you were in good shape for search rankings.

But in 2025, Google moved the goalposts. Loading speed is no longer enough. Now, Google is measuring something more nuanced and more important: responsiveness.

Here's what I mean. Imagine visiting a website on your phone. The page loads instantly, great! But then you try to tap the menu button, and... nothing happens. You tap again. Still nothing. Finally, two seconds later, the menu opens.

The page loaded fast. But it didn't respond fast. And that difference? That's what Google is now prioritizing in search rankings.

This shift represents Google's evolution from mobile-first indexing to interaction-first ranking. It's not just about whether your website works on mobile anymore. It's about whether users can actually do things quickly when they get there.

The metric measuring this? It's called INP (Interaction to Next Paint). And if you've never heard of it, you're not alone but you need to understand it.

Because starting in March 2024, INP officially replaced First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital. And throughout 2025, Google's core updates continued emphasizing this user experience and technical SEO metric.

In this post, I'm going to explain exactly what INP is, why it matters for your business, what's probably hurting your score right now, and how to fix it before it costs you more money.

What Is INP (Interaction to Next Paint)?

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures how quickly your website responds when someone interacts with it.

"Interactions" means things like:

• Tapping a button on mobile
• Clicking a menu link
• Pressing a key in a form field
• Selecting an option from a dropdown

INP tracks all of these interactions throughout someone's entire visit to your website. Then it reports the longest (worst) interaction time as your score.

Why does this matter?

Because even one slow interaction ruins the user experience. If your homepage loads instantly but your "Contact Us" button takes 2 seconds to respond, users get frustrated and leave. Google knows this, which is why they're now penalizing websites with poor interaction speed.

The INP Thresholds You Need to Know

Google defines three performance levels for INP:

Good: Under 200 milliseconds Your website responds almost instantly. Users experience smooth, fluid interactions. This is where you want to be.

Needs Improvement: 200–500 milliseconds Noticeable but not terrible. Users might feel slight delays, but they're tolerable. You're in the warning zone not failing yet, but vulnerable.

Poor: Over 500 milliseconds Half a second or more of delay. This feels sluggish to users. High bounce rates, abandoned actions, and yes ranking penalties.

Here's the reality check: Half a second doesn't sound like much. But in digital interaction terms, it's an eternity.

Think about your own behavior online. When you tap something on your phone and it doesn't respond immediately, what do you do? You tap again. You get annoyed. You might even leave the website entirely.

Your customers are doing the same thing on your website. And now Google is tracking it.

How INP Directly Affects Your Business

This isn't just about SEO rankings (though that's significant). INP affects three critical business metrics:

Search visibility: Websites with poor INP scores rank lower than competitors with good scores, all else being equal.

Bounce rates: Slow interactions frustrate users, causing them to leave before completing actions like filling out forms or making purchases.

Conversions: Every millisecond of delay costs you potential customers. Studies show even 100ms delays can reduce conversion rates.

Bottom line: Poor INP is literally costing you money—in lost rankings, lost traffic, and lost revenue.

How to Check Your INP Score Right Now

You don't need to be technical to check this. Google provides free tools:

Google PageSpeed Insights: Visit pagespeed.web.dev, enter your URL, and look for the "INP" score in the Core Web Vitals section. It'll show your score and tell you if it's good, needs improvement, or poor.

Chrome DevTools Performance Tab: For those comfortable with browser developer tools, you can measure INP on specific interactions in real-time while browsing your own website.

Go check your score right now. Seriously pause reading this and check. Because if you're in the "poor" range, every day you wait is costing you rankings and customers.

Common Problems That Harm Google INP Scores

Now let's talk about what's actually causing slow interactions on your website. These are the "silent killers" of user experience issues happening behind the scenes that you probably don't even know exist.

JavaScript: The Biggest Culprit

Most business owners don't realize that every feature, plugin, tracking script, and widget you add to your website adds JavaScript code. And JavaScript is usually what's killing your INP score.

• Heavy or unused JavaScript bundles

Many websites load massive amounts of JavaScript that visitors never actually use. It's like carrying a 50-pound backpack when you only need what's in your pockets.

Example: Your WordPress theme might include JavaScript for features you're not even using sliders you disabled, animations you turned off, functionality you never enabled. But the code still loads and slows everything down.

• Blocking third-party scripts

Every tracking pixel, analytics tag, chat widget, social media button, and advertising script adds delay. These third-party tools are often the worst offenders because you have no control over how they're coded.

Common culprits:

• Google Analytics and Tag Manager
• Facebook Pixel
• Live chat widgets
• Popup builders
• Heatmap tracking tools
• Advertising scripts

Each one might only add 50-100ms of delay. But when you have 10+ third-party scripts? That's easily 500ms+ of interaction delay right there.

• Long main-thread tasks

Your browser has a "main thread" that handles user interactions. When JavaScript runs for too long (more than 200ms), it blocks that thread. Result? Your website can't respond to clicks, taps, or keypresses until the JavaScript finishes.

This is often caused by:

• Complex animations running constantly
• Heavy framework code (React, Vue, etc.) not optimized properly
• Inefficient event handlers that run on every scroll or mousemove
• Client-side rendering that processes too much data at once

Poor implementation of interactive elements

Sometimes it's not the amount of JavaScript, it's how it's written. Poorly coded animations, transitions, or interactive features can cause massive delays even with relatively little code.

Front-End Performance Issues

• Large or overly complex layouts

The more elements on your page, the harder your browser has to work to update the display when users interact. Large DOM size (Document Object Model—basically, how many HTML elements are on the page) is a major INP killer.

If your homepage has 2,000+ DOM elements, every interaction takes longer because the browser has to process more information.

• Non-optimized images

Large image files don't just slow initial page load. They also tie up the main thread during decoding, which delays interactions. If your images aren't properly compressed and sized, they're hurting INP.

• Excessive web fonts

Every custom font you load is another resource your browser has to download and process. Multiple font weights and styles multiply the problem. Poor font-loading strategies can block interactions while fonts download.

• Framework overhead

Modern frameworks like React or Vue are powerful—but they add overhead. If not optimized properly, framework-heavy websites can have significant interaction delays, especially on mobile devices with less processing power.

CMS and Platform Issues

• WordPress plugin bloat

This is the #1 problem I see with small business WordPress websites. You install a plugin for contact forms. Another for SEO. One for backups. One for security. A page builder. Social sharing buttons. Analytics. Before you know it, you have 30+ plugins, each adding JavaScript and slowing interactions.

• Inefficient themes and page builders

Popular page builders like Elementor, Divi, and Visual Composer make design easy—but they often generate bloated code with excessive DOM elements and heavy JavaScript. A simple three-section homepage built with a page builder might have 10x more code than the same page hand-coded.

• Templates overloaded with features

Many themes come with dozens of features and effects built in. Most websites use maybe 20% of those features. But 100% of the code still loads, slowing everything down.

Why Small Businesses Should Care Most

You might be thinking, "This sounds technical. Why does this matter for my local business?"

Here's why: Your customers are mobile-first, impatient, and have options.

Modern Users Expect Instant Interaction

When someone taps your phone number to call, they expect it to dial immediately. When they tap your menu, they expect it to open instantly. When they click "Get a Quote," they expect the form to appear right away.

Every millisecond of delay increases the chance they'll abandon your website and try your competitor instead.

Let me show you how this plays out for real businesses:

• A local HVAC company with too many tracking scripts → slow tap-to-call button on mobile → lower lead volume.
• A SaaS startup website with heavy animations → mobile menu takes 1–2 seconds to open → high abandonment rate.
• A legal / professional services firm on WordPress using page builders (Elementor/Divi) → bloated DOM → laggy scroll and button clicks.

The pattern is clear: Poor INP directly damages your ability to generate leads and revenue.

How to Improve Your INP Score and Fix Interaction Latency

What can you actually do to improve your INP score and page speed optimization?

1. Audit and Reduce JavaScript

Remove unnecessary plugins and scripts. Go through every plugin, widget, and tracking script on your website. If you're not actively using it, remove it. That chat widget you added a year ago but never monitor? Gone. That social sharing plugin with 2 clicks per month? Gone.

Lazy-load non-critical scripts. Not everything needs to load immediately. Third-party scripts that aren't essential for initial interaction should load after the page is interactive.

Defer or async JavaScript loading. Technical implementation matters. Scripts should load without blocking the main thread whenever possible.

2. Optimize Your Front-End

Compress and properly size images. Every image should be optimized for web, properly sized for its display dimensions, and served in modern formats like WebP.

Reduce DOM complexity. Simplify page layouts. Remove unnecessary div wrappers and elements. Aim for under 1,500 DOM elements per page.

Optimize web fonts. Limit font weights and styles. Use font-display: swap to prevent blocking. Consider system fonts for body text.

3. Address CMS and Platform Issues

Clean up WordPress plugins. Conduct a plugin audit. Deactivate and delete anything non-essential. Look for opportunities to replace multiple plugins with one well-coded solution.

Evaluate your theme or page builder. Sometimes the only real solution is switching to a more lightweight theme or migrating away from heavy page builders to cleaner, hand-coded templates.

Optimize your build process. For websites using modern frameworks, ensure proper code splitting, tree shaking, and build optimization.

4. Implement Performance Monitoring

Set up real user monitoring. Track actual INP scores from real visitors, not just lab tests. This shows you what users actually experience.

Regular performance audits. INP scores decay over time as you add features, content, and integrations. Regular audits catch problems before they become serious.

How SPYCE Can Help Your Business Grow this 2026

Most small businesses don't have the technical expertise or time to manage these optimizations themselves.

That's exactly why we built our services around performance-focused web design and ongoing technical maintenance.

What Makes SPYCE Different

We're experts in INP optimization and JavaScript auditing. We don't just build websites, we build fast, responsive experiences that rank well and convert visitors. We understand the technical details of Core Web Vitals optimization and how to improve your Google INP score without sacrificing design or functionality.

We provide ongoing maintenance to prevent score decay. INP scores get worse over time. As you add features, install plugins, or integrate new tools, performance degrades. Our website maintenance packages include regular performance audits and optimization to keep your scores in the "good" range.

We understand the business impact, not just the technical metrics. We're not optimizing for numbers on a dashboard. We're optimizing for more leads, better user experience, and higher revenue. Every technical decision connects to business outcomes.

We handle the complexity so you can focus on running your business. You shouldn't need to understand JavaScript execution, DOM manipulation, or render-blocking resources. You should be able to trust that your website is fast, responsive, and helping your business grow. That's what we deliver.

The Bottom Line: Your Website Experience Matters More Than Ever

Let me leave you with this thought: Use the same consideration for your own website as you do when you view others'.

How quickly do you expect access to information and features when you visit a website? How much delay do you tolerate before you feel your experience is compromised?

Your customers have those same expectations for your website.

While Google's updates can feel daunting for businesses with an online presence, remember what they're actually doing: working to keep users happy. Websites with better user experiences get rewarded. Websites with poor experiences get penalized. That's fair.

Your Next Steps

Google's assessment and ranking updates of its Core Web Vitals are never-ending. That makes a technical SEO and website maintenance plan equally vital to business success.

You have two choices:

1. Ignore this and hope it doesn't affect you. (Spoiler: It will. Your competitors are already optimizing, and you're falling behind every day you wait.)
2. Take action now to improve your INP score and protect your rankings, traffic, and revenue.

Ready to stop losing business to slow interaction speeds?

Schedule a strategy call for consultation on speed and interaction optimization. We'll audit your current INP score, identify what's slowing you down, and create a plan to fix it.

Or learn how a SPYCE website maintenance plan can keep you ready for the ongoing changes in SEO so you never have to worry about falling behind on Core Web Vitals again.

Because your website should be helping you grow your business, not holding it back.