Minimizing Web Fonts for Better Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals (CWV) are essential metrics for assessing web performance that influence a site's ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) by reflecting the user experience quality. The text highlights the importance of these metrics for both user engagement and SEO, emphasizing that subpar CWV scores can result in poor rankings. It specifically examines how web fonts, which are not pre-installed on users' systems and downloaded via the CSS @font-face declaration, can negatively impact CWV by affecting metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Poorly optimized web fonts can delay page rendering and cause layout shifts, leading to a suboptimal user experience. The text outlines strategies to mitigate these negative effects, such as preloading fonts, using system fonts, optimizing font sizes and formats, and caching to improve load times and reduce layout shifts. These strategies aim to ensure that custom web fonts do not detract from a website's performance or user experience, ultimately supporting better CWV scores and search engine rankings.