Yoast and Google-Sponsored Core Contributors Propose New WordPress Performance Team
Yoast and Google-sponsored WordPress core contributors are proposing the project add a Performance team to improve core performance as measured by Google’s Web Vitals metrics. “Users expect and prefer fast experiences (consciously or otherwise),” Yoast-sponsored full-time core contributor Ari Stathopoulos said. “Research shows that fast websites can provide a better user experience, increase engagement, benefit SEO, increase conversion, and be more economically and ecologically friendly.” There is no doubt that users expect and can benefit from improved performance, but there are a number of variables at play in any given WordPress site. Looking purely at core performance, Stathopoulos said WordPress is not holding up to the competition. “Compared to other platforms (e.g., Wix, Shopify, Squarespace), WordPress is falling behind,” he said. “Other platforms are on average faster – and becoming increasingly faster – than WordPress websites (see The HTTP Archive’s Core Web Vitals report), and are actively investing in (and marketing) core performance-as-a-feature [1, 2].” The HTTP Archive, which provides a common data set for those conducting web performance research, found that only 21.5% of sites assessed have good Core Web Vitals scores as of September 2021. While that percentage has been increasing over time, competitors that are already outperforming WordPress sites are also rapidly…
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