The State of Web Vitals

HTTP cache TTL tiers (immutable, long TTL, no-store) and the Core Web Vitals

Unspecified cache headers (97.6%), long TTLs (74.1%), medium TTLs (73.6%), no-store (67.7%), short TTLs (67.7%), no-cache (39.4%), and Cache-Control: immutable (26.1%).

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites October 2026 edition · Desktop field outcomes

26.1% of sites use Cache-Control: immutable HTTP cache TTL tiers, and 87% of those sites have a good LCP, against 86% of all sites.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · 210,902 crawled sites · 69,745 with desktop field data · 206,252 sites with HTTP cache TTL tiersBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
1

LCP pass rate

Sites with Cache-Control: immutable HTTP cache TTL tiers have a good LCP most often: 87%, against 86% of all sites. Sites with no-store cache tiers have it least often, at 85%.

SitesGood, needs improvement, poor LCPMedian
All sites69,74586%1.4s
Cache-Control: immutable 26.1%22,27187%1.4s
Unspecified cache lifetime 97.6%68,15686%1.4s
Medium TTL (1 - 30 days) 73.6%53,71486%1.4s
Short TTL (< 1 day) 67.7%53,30786%1.4s
Cache-Control: no-cache 39.4%30,60686%1.4s
Long TTL (> 30 days) 74.1%53,15886%1.4s
Cache-Control: no-store 67.7%51,80985%1.4s
GoodNeeds improvementPoorSites: with Chrome field data
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · 210,902 crawled sites · 69,745 with desktop field data · 206,252 sites with HTTP cache TTL tiersBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
2

HTTP cache TTL tiers usage

Unspecified cache is the most used: 97.6% of sites. Cache-Control: immutable is 26.1% of sites.

Sites using each option (sites can use more than one) 206,252 sites
Unspecified cache lifetime 97.6% Long TTL (> 30 days) 74.1% Medium TTL (1 - 30 days) 73.6% Cache-Control: no-store 67.7% Short TTL (< 1 day) 67.7%
Unspecified cache lifetime 97.6% Long TTL (> 30 days) 74.1% Medium TTL (1 - 30 days) 73.6% Cache-Control: no-store 67.7% Short TTL (< 1 day) 67.7% Cache-Control: no-cache 39.4% Cache-Control: immutable 26.1%
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · 210,902 crawled sites · 69,745 with desktop field data · 206,252 sites with HTTP cache TTL tiersBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
3

How HTTP cache TTL tiers affect the four LCP phases

Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between Cache-Control: immutable and no-store sits in time to first byte (TTFB): 495 ms median for Cache-Control: immutable against 590 ms for no-store. Overall median field LCP is 1.4s for Cache-Control: immutable (TTFB 495 ms, load delay 364 ms, load duration 121 ms, render delay 215 ms) versus 1.4s for no-store.

Median LCP phase breakdown (Chrome field p75) Load delay Median LCP
Sites with HTTP cache TTL tiers 50,974571 ms274 ms191 ms274 mslab 316 ms1.4s
Unspecified cache lifetime 49,954573 ms276 ms191 ms276 mslab 318 ms1.4s
Medium TTL (1 - 30 days) 40,094587 ms283 ms201 ms283 mslab 326 ms1.4s
Cache-Control: no-store 39,031590 ms289 ms200 ms289 mslab 331 ms1.4s
Short TTL (< 1 day) 40,237588 ms289 ms201 ms289 mslab 333 ms1.4s
Long TTL (> 30 days) 39,652589 ms291 ms202 ms291 mslab 334 ms1.4s
Cache-Control: no-cache 23,475575 ms320 ms209 ms320 mslab 361 ms1.5s
Cache-Control: immutable 17,164495 ms364 ms215 ms364 mslab 405 ms1.4s
TTFB Resource load delay Resource load time Element render delay
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · 210,902 crawled sites · 69,745 with desktop field data · 206,252 sites with HTTP cache TTL tiersBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
4

Understanding HTTP cache TTL tiers

How Cache-Control: immutable and long TTLs accelerate repeat views

Field Core Web Vitals combine first visits and repeat navigations from Chrome users. Sites that serve content-hashed static bundles with Cache-Control: immutable (26.1% of sites) achieve 87% good field LCP (1.4s median LCP), outperforming sites limited to short TTLs (67.7%, 86% good LCP) or no-store responses (67.7%, 85% good LCP).

Fingerprint static CSS, JavaScript, and font filenames and serve them with Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable. While 74.1% of sites use long cache TTLs, only 26.1% include the immutable directive (87% good LCP), which prevents unnecessary 304 revalidation round-trips when users reload or navigate across pages.

Go fix it TTFB: cache duration → Configure Cloudflare for passing the Core Web Vitals →
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · 210,902 crawled sites · 69,745 with desktop field data · 206,252 sites with HTTP cache TTL tiersBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
Platform & Framework Takeaways

How HTTP cache TTL tiers plays out per platform

What the field data shows when you isolate a single CMS or framework.

WordPress 65,509 sites
80.2% vs 16.1% long TTL vs Cache-Control: immutable

16.1% of WordPress sites serve Cache-Control: immutable assets, while 80.2% use long TTLs.

WordPress core appends a ?ver= query string to enqueued scripts and styles with wp_enqueue_script(). Across WordPress, 80.2% of sites serve long-TTL static files and 16.1% emit Cache-Control: immutable.

Read the WordPress cache strategy breakdown →
React & Next.js 9,570 sites
70.7% immutable hashed chunks (86% good LCP)

70.7% of React & Next.js sites serve Cache-Control: immutable assets (86% good LCP).

Across React sites, 70.7% emit Cache-Control: immutable headers on static chunks (86% good LCP) compared with 76% on short-TTL sites.

Related signals Cacheable responses → HTTP protocol mix → HTML size (kB) → Last-Modified present → By Arjen Karel · 210,902 crawled sites (69,745 with desktop Chrome field data, 206,252 sites with HTTP cache TTL tiers, October 2026) · How we measured