Page-wide image fetchpriority hints and the Core Web Vitals
Default auto priority (99.3%), fetchpriority="high" (34.3%), and fetchpriority="low" (1.6%): how image priority hints are deployed across the web and how they move Largest Contentful Paint.
1.6% of sites use fetchpriority="low" image fetchpriority hints, and 91% of those sites have a good LCP, against 86% of all sites.
LCP pass rate
Sites with fetchpriority="low" image fetchpriority hints have a good LCP most often: 91%, against 86% of all sites. Sites with fetchpriority="high" fetchpriority hints have it least often, at 80%.
Image fetchpriority hints usage
Default auto priority is the most used: 99.3% of sites. Fetchpriority="low" is 1.6% of sites.
How image fetchpriority hints affect the four LCP phases
Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between fetchpriority="low" and fetchpriority="high" sits in time to first byte (TTFB): 388 ms median for fetchpriority="low" against 776 ms for fetchpriority="high". Overall median field LCP is 1.3s for fetchpriority="low" (TTFB 388 ms, load delay 431 ms, load duration 131 ms, render delay 275 ms) versus 1.6s for fetchpriority="high".
Image fetchpriority hints per platform
On WordPress, 99% of sites use default auto priority image fetchpriority hints, and 76% of WordPress sites have a good LCP, against 86% of all sites. On Shopify, 100% of sites use default auto priority, and 97% of Shopify sites have a good LCP.
Shopify 8,549 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 100%fetchpriority="high" 39%fetchpriority="low" 13%97%
Squarespace 2,239 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 96%fetchpriority="high" 76%fetchpriority="low" 30%94%
Drupal 3,266 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 100%93%
Joomla 2,522 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 100%93%
Wix 5,803 sitesfetchpriority="high" 99%Default priority (auto / unset) 95%92%
Adobe Commerce 1,093 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 100%fetchpriority="high" 16%83%
WordPress 65,177 sitesDefault priority (auto / unset) 99%fetchpriority="high" 66%76%Image fetchpriority hints or the platform
Does the platform explain the image fetchpriority hints difference?
On WordPress, 77% of sites with fetchpriority="low" image fetchpriority hints have a good LCP, against 76% of WordPress sites with default auto priority. Within WordPress, sites with fetchpriority="low" and default auto priority have a good LCP about equally often. On Shopify, 96% of sites with fetchpriority="low" image fetchpriority hints have a good LCP, against 97% of Shopify sites with default auto priority. Within Shopify, sites with fetchpriority="low" and default auto priority have a good LCP about equally often.
How fetchpriority="high" and fetchpriority="low" reorder image fetches
In Chromium, <img> requests start at Low priority until layout determines which images sit inside the viewport. Setting fetchpriority="high" (34.3% of sites) elevates the request to High priority during HTML parsing, while setting fetchpriority="low" (1.6% of sites, 91% good LCP) keeps offscreen carousel or thumbnail images from competing with critical resources.
Understanding image fetchpriority hints
Apply fetchpriority="high" only to the single above-the-fold LCP image, and use fetchpriority="low" on secondary carousel slides or product thumbnails that are fetched early. Across the web, 99.3% of sites have default-priority images (86% good LCP), 34.3% ship at least one fetchpriority="high" image (80% good LCP, heavily concentrated on WordPress), and 1.6% use fetchpriority="low" (91% good LCP).
By Arjen Karel · 210,902 crawled sites (69,745 with desktop Chrome field data, 193,893 sites with image fetchpriority hints, October 2026). How we measured.