The State of Web Vitals

Image source mix

Where images come from: same origin, third party, or inline data URIs.

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites Q1 2026 edition · Phone field outcomes
Metric LCP INP CLS
1

At a glance the headline numbers for Image source mix

Where images come from: same origin, third party, or inline data URIs.

3
Categories
In the distribution
60.4%
Fleet share
Top: self
84.1%
Sites with any
Of self

31.1% of images come from third-party domains.

The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
2

The image source mix mix who uses what, and how fast each group loads

Median INP (sites using feature)
0
100ms
200ms
300ms
400ms
500ms
Self99ms60% of sites
Third party102ms31% of sites
Inline104ms9% of sites
VariantShare of requestsMedian
Self
60%
99ms
Third party
31%
102ms
Inline
9%
104ms

Image source mix. On the fleet: 60.4% self, 31.1% third party, 8.5% inline. 84.1% of sites use at least one self.

Self leads by count (60.4%) and by bytes (80.3%). computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
3

Passing INP per bucket every category and count level at once - color is the pass rate

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Self 60.4%
85
88
91
93
94
95
94
93
92
90
Third party 31.1%
93
93
94
94
92
92
90
90
88
83
Inline 8.5%
94
93
96
95
93
94
91
91
86
82
← few of this category on the pagemany →
60%95%+ of sites passing INP Faded cells: under 100 sites

Each row is a category, each column its own count bucket (few on the left, many on the right); the cell is the share of those sites passing INP.

Inline swings the hardest: 94% of sites pass INP with few, 82% with many. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
4

Few vs many - does quantity cost INP? the pass rate with few vs many of each category

60%70%80%90%100% few → many
Inline 8.5% 94% → 82%
Third party 31.1% 93% → 83%
Self 60.4% 85% → 90%
% of sites passing INP · hollow ring = pages with few, solid dot = pages with many

Per category: the pass rate among pages with FEW of it (hollow ring) against pages with MANY (solid dot), worst trend first. Thin buckets are excluded from the endpoints.

More Inline costs the most: the INP pass rate falls from 94% with few to 82% with many. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
5

Why this matters for the Core Web Vitals, and where to start fixing it

Third-party images pay the connection tax: DNS, TCP and TLS before the first byte, on a domain your page has not warmed up. Data URIs are the opposite trap. The image bytes hide inside the HTML or CSS, bloat the document everything else waits for, and cannot be cached on their own.

Keep important images on a domain the browser has already connected to. Inline only icons too small to be worth a request. For everything else, a real URL on a warm connection wins.

How does this affect the Core Web Vitals?

The choice barely moves the LCP: 81% pass at best, 79% at worst. This signal does not separate passing sites from failing ones.

Go fix it Optimize images for Core Web Vitals → Third-party domains →
Related signals Bytes by resource type → Images per page → DOM size → Iframes per page → Chrome field data from 94,910 sites, representing millions of real page loads · How we measured