How strongly do Core Web Vitals affect Google rankings?

Core Web Vitals are a confirmed ranking factor, but one among many. Google has repeatedly emphasized that content relevance remains by far the strongest signal. So a page sitting at position 30 will not climb to the top through fast load times alone. In practice, the vitals act primarily as a tie-breaker: when two pages offer similarly relevant content, Google favors the faster, more user-friendly one.

For highly competitive search terms in particular, this difference can determine whether you rank at position 3 or position 8, and thus a substantial share of the clicks. Across our projects (project experience), websites typically gain two to five positions on relevant terms after comprehensive optimization of their Core Web Vitals. This can never be guaranteed, because rankings depend on many factors, but performance is one of the few entirely within your control.