The State of Web Vitals

Connection hints

dns-prefetch, preconnect and preload links the document declares.

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites Q2 2026 edition · Phone field outcomes
Metric LCP INP CLS
1

At a glance the headline numbers for Connection hints

dns-prefetch, preconnect and preload links the document declares.

0
Median (p50)
180,899 sites
1
p75
18
p99
Long tail
The State of Web Vitals · Q2 2026 · 189,915 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
2

Distribution & median LCP site count and median LCP at each level of connection hints — preload

0ms 750ms 1500ms 2250ms 3000ms
2.5s
0 64262 128523
0–0 1–1 2–2 3–3 4+
Good (≤2.5s) Needs improvement Poor (>4s) Site count
The State of Web Vitals · Q2 2026 · 189,915 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
3

Passing LCP by connection hints — preload which level passes the LCP most often

Connection hints — preloadSitesPassing LCPLCP
0–0 128,523 81% 1.6s
1–1 14,628 81% 1.6s
2–2 10,639 86% 1.5s
3–3 4,702 84% 1.6s
4+ 22,407 82% 1.6s
Good Needs Improvement Poor Faded rows: under 100 sites

Connection hints — preload 0. p75 1. p99 18. At the low end (0–0): LCP 1.6s. At the high end (4+): LCP 1.6s. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q2 2026 · 189,915 sites · phone field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
4

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

Hints move network work earlier. dns-prefetch resolves a domain name before it is needed. preconnect goes further and completes the TCP and TLS setup too. preload fetches one specific file that the scanner would otherwise find late, like a background hero image or a critical font.

Hints are easy to overuse. Every preconnect spends sockets and CPU on a connection you might never use. A preload that is not critical steals bandwidth from something that is. A handful of deliberate hints beats a wall of them.

How does this affect the Core Web Vitals?

Passing LCP barely moves across the range: 81% at one end, 82% at the other. This signal does not separate passing sites from failing ones.

Go fix it Guide to resource prioritization → Preload the LCP image → When preloading stylesheets does not make sense → 103 Early Hints →
Related signals Cacheable responses → Last-Modified present → Requests via CDN → HTML size (kB) → Chrome field data from 189,915 sites, representing millions of real page loads · How we measured