Core Web Vitals in 2026 consist of three metrics, all measured at the 75th percentile of real Chrome user page loads (not synthetic Lighthouse scores). The 'good' thresholds: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) under 200 milliseconds, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) under 0.1. Google reports these in Search Console under the Core Web Vitals report and in PageSpeed Insights using Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) data. LCP measures how quickly the largest above-the-fold element renders. The 'good' threshold of 2.5 seconds is fast — most unoptimized Canadian SMB sites land in the 'needs improvement' (2.5–4 seconds) or 'poor' (above 4 seconds) buckets. The biggest LCP killers are unoptimized hero images, render-blocking JavaScript, slow server response times (TTFB), and lack of image preloading. INP replaced First Input Delay (FID) as the official Core Web Vital in March 2024. INP measures the latency of the slowest interaction across the page lifetime, capturing real responsiveness rather than just first-input delay. The 200ms 'good' threshold means clicks, taps, and key presses should produce visible visual updates within that window. Heavy JavaScript execution (especially third-party scripts, analytics tags, and chat widgets) is the most common INP killer. CLS measures unexpected visual layout shifts during page load. The 0.1 'good' threshold is forgiving — most well-built sites pass it easily. Common CLS offenders: images without explicit width/height attributes, ads or embeds that load after page render, web fonts that swap from fallback to custom (FOUT/FOIT issues), and JavaScript that injects content above existing content. For Canadian sites specifically, Core Web Vitals matter both as a direct ranking factor (modest weight) and as a user experience signal that affects engagement, conversion, and dwell time — which compound into stronger SEO performance. The optimization priority order for most Canadian SMB sites: fix LCP first (biggest visible wins), then INP (most common Search Console flagging), then CLS (usually quick fixes if you have any flagged URLs).