The State of Web Vitals

Shopify script initiators and the Core Web Vitals

99.9% of audited sites (8,232) load scripts directly from the HTML parser (96% good INP, 97ms median), while 99.9% inject scripts via other scripts (96% good INP, 97ms median) and 19.1% trigger scripts from other initiators (94% good INP).

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites October 2026 edition · All devices field outcomes · Shopify sites only
Shopify Scoped to 8,248 sites out of 203,892 analyzed (cms) Compare with all sites →
INP Interaction LCP Loading

99.9% of Shopify sites use inline scripts script initiator type, and 96% of those sites have a good INP, against 96% of all Shopify sites.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field data · 8,243 sites with script initiator typeBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Core Web Vitals pass rate

Sites with inline scripts script initiator type have a good INP most often: 96%, against 96% of all Shopify sites. Sites with other script initiators script initiators have it least often, at 94%.

SitesGood, needs improvement, poor INPMedian
All Shopify sites8,06296%97ms
Inline <script> execution 99.9%8,05896%97ms
Script-injected (tag managers / loaders) 99.9%8,05496%97ms
HTML parser (<script src>) 99.9%8,04896%97ms
Other initiators (workers / preloads) 19.1%1,54094%105ms
GoodNeeds improvementPoorSites: with Chrome field data
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field data · 8,243 sites with script initiator typeBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Script initiator type usage

Inline scripts is the most used: 99.9% of Shopify sites.

Sites using each option (sites can use more than one) 8,243 sites
Inline <script> execution 99.9% Script-injected (tag managers / loaders) 99.9% HTML parser (<script src>) 99.9%
Inline <script> execution 99.9% Script-injected (tag managers / loaders) 99.9% HTML parser (<script src>) 99.9% Other initiators (workers / preloads) 19.1%
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field data · 8,243 sites with script initiator typeBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Script initiator type per framework

Vue sets the script initiator type to inline scripts on 100% of its sites, and 94% of Vue sites have a good INP, against 96% of all sites.

FrameworkScript initiator type on its sitesGood INP
Shopify sites with script initiator type 8,243 sitesInline <script> execution 100%Script-injected (tag managers / loaders) 100%HTML parser (<script src>) 100%Other initiators (workers / preloads) 19%96%
jQuery 3,150 sitesInline <script> execution 100%HTML parser (<script src>) 100%Script-injected (tag managers / loaders) 100%Other initiators (workers / preloads) 25%95%
Vue 933 sitesHTML parser (<script src>) 100%Inline <script> execution 100%Script-injected (tag managers / loaders) 100%Other initiators (workers / preloads) 23%94%
Inline <script> execution Script-injected (tag managers / loaders) HTML parser (<script src>) Other initiators (workers / preloads)
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field data · 8,243 sites with script initiator typeBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Script initiator or the framework

Does the framework explain the script initiator type difference?

On jQuery, 95% of sites with inline scripts script initiator type have a good INP, against 95% of jQuery sites with script-injected scripts. Within jQuery, sites with inline scripts and script-injected scripts have a good INP about equally often. On Vue, 94% of sites with inline scripts script initiator type have a good INP, against 94% of Vue sites with script-injected scripts. Within Vue, sites with inline scripts and script-injected scripts have a good INP about equally often.

Parser-discovered scripts versus cascading script-injected chains

When scripts are declared in HTML (99.9% of sites, 8,232), the browser preload scanner discovers them immediately (96% good INP, 97ms median). On 99.9% of sites (8,238), scripts are dynamically injected by other scripts such as Google Tag Manager or loader snippets (96% good INP, 97ms median), while 19.1% (1,571) trigger scripts via other initiators (94% good INP, 105ms median).

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field data · 8,243 sites with script initiator typeBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Understanding script initiators

Prefer declarative <script defer> tags in HTML over JavaScript loader chains that inject second- and third-level scripts at runtime, and throttle tag-manager injection so late scripts do not fire during user input. Across all audited sites, 99.9% use parser-initiated scripts (96% good INP) and 99.9% use script-injected loaders (96% good INP).

Go fix it Avoid chaining critical requests → The case for limiting analytics and tracking scripts → Head vs footer JavaScript →
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field data · 8,243 sites with script initiator typeBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
Related signals Uses @import → Iframe dimensions set → Responsive image markup → Third-party share → By Arjen Karel · 8,246 crawled Shopify sites (8,062 with all devices Chrome field data, 8,243 sites with script initiator type, October 2026) · How we measured