LCP priority hints on React sites
fetchpriority="high", <link rel="preload">, <link rel="preconnect">, or no hint at all: how priority hints cut LCP resource load delay (208 ms with preload vs 425 ms with no hint) and move Largest Contentful Paint.
Three in five React sites, 60.5%, have no LCP priority hints. Of the 39.5% that do, 90% use fetchpriority="high", and 92% of those sites have a good LCP, against 84% of all React sites.
LCP pass rate
Sites with fetchpriority="high" LCP priority hints have a good LCP most often: 92%, against 84% of all React sites. Sites with <link rel="preconnect"> priority hints have it least often, at 82%.
LCP priority hints usage
Two in five React sites uses LCP priority hints, and nine in ten of those use fetchpriority="high".
Where priority hints save time: the four LCP phases
Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between fetchpriority="high" and no sits in time to first byte (TTFB): 420 ms median for fetchpriority="high" against 579 ms for no. Overall median field LCP is 1.2s for fetchpriority="high" (TTFB 420 ms, load delay 441 ms, load duration 119 ms, render delay 160 ms) versus 1.5s for no.
LCP priority hints combined with the loading attribute
Combining fetchpriority="high" with Auto reaches 92% good LCP across 1,748 sites (437 ms median load delay). At the other end, no paired with Auto sits at 76% across 494 sites (279 ms median load delay).
| Priority hint | No loading attribute (auto) | loading="lazy" | loading="eager" |
|---|---|---|---|
| No priority hint | 76% 779 sites | 87% 990 sites | 89% 325 sites |
| fetchpriority="high" | 92% 3,194 sites | 94% 90 sites | 85% 71 sites |
| <link rel="preload"> | few sites | few sites | few sites |
| <link rel="preconnect"> | 89% 199 sites | few sites | few sites |
LCP priority hints per platform
Wix sets the LCP priority hints to fetchpriority="high" on 52% of its sites, and 94% of Wix sites have a good LCP, against 84% of all sites.
Wix 5,791 sitesfetchpriority="high" 52%No priority hint 48%94%
WordPress 2,219 sitesNo priority hint 81%fetchpriority="high" 13%63%LCP priority hints or the platform
Does the platform explain the LCP priority hints difference?
On Wix, 94% of sites with fetchpriority="high" LCP priority hints have a good LCP, against 94% of Wix sites without LCP priority hints. Within Wix, sites with and without LCP priority hints have a good LCP about equally often.
How fetchpriority and preload change Chrome's network queue
Chromium starts <img> requests at Low network priority while stylesheets and head scripts download at Highest or High priority, only promoting visible viewport images to High after layout completes. Adding fetchpriority="high" to the hero <img> sets its initial network priority to High during the preload scan, while <link rel="preload" as="image"> starts the download from the document <head> and cuts median resource load delay from 425 ms to 208 ms.
Understanding LCP priority hints
Add fetchpriority="high" directly to your hero <img> element, and use <link rel="preload" as="image" fetchpriority="high"> if the image is discovered late. Across all audited sites, 60.5% of LCP elements carry no priority hint at all (80% good LCP, 425 ms median resource load delay). Sites using fetchpriority="high" reach 92% good LCP (441 ms load delay), and sites using <link rel="preload"> cut median resource load delay to 208 ms. Apply priority hints strictly to the single LCP resource so other images do not compete for the same bandwidth.
By Arjen Karel · 9,570 crawled React sites (5,488 with phone Chrome field data, 9,390 sites with LCP priority hints, October 2026). How we measured.