Speculation eagerness

How eager the winning speculation rule is, from conservative to immediate.

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

At a glance the headline numbers for Speculation eagerness

How eager the winning speculation rule is, from conservative to immediate.

5
Categories
94,890 sites
65.0%
Top share
none
49ms
Top INP
Median for none

0.6% of sites speculate on hover. 31.5% wait for the press.

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

Speculation eagerness who uses what, and how fast each group loads

Median INP
0
100ms
200ms
300ms
400ms
500ms
eager37ms3% of sites
conservative48ms32% of sites
none49ms65% of sites
moderate56ms1% of sites
immediate74ms0% of sites
VariantShare of sitesMedian
eager 2,693 sites
3%
37ms
conservative 29,881 sites
32%
48ms
none 61,678 sites
65%
49ms
moderate 564 sites
1%
56ms
immediate 74 sites
0%
74ms

Little daylight between the groups: every variant sits near 37ms median INP. computed

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

Passing INP per speculation eagerness which group passes the INP most often

VariantSitesPassing INPINP
Immediate 0.1% 74 100% 74ms
Conservative 31.5% 29,881 100% 48ms
Eager 2.8% 2,693 100% 37ms
None 65% 61,678 99% 49ms
Moderate 0.6% 564 98% 56ms
Good Needs Improvement Poor Sorted best-passing first · median colored by its own rating · pass = good INP (200ms at p75) · one value per site

No variant stands out: pass rates sit between 98% and 100%. computed

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

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

Eagerness is the trigger: when speculation starts. Conservative waits for the press, the moment between pointer-down and the completed click. Moderate starts on hover. Eager and immediate speculate before any signal, trading wasted loads for a longer head start.

Conservative is close to free: it only speculates on links the visitor is touching, and the press-to-click gap is head start nobody misses. Turn eagerness up only where the next click is predictable, like a paginated flow or a checkout funnel.

How does this affect the Core Web Vitals?

The choice barely moves the INP: 100% pass at best, 98% at worst. This signal does not separate passing sites from failing ones.

The split is bigger on CLS. With Eager, 96% of sites pass it. With Conservative, 78% do.

Related signals Speculation posture → Chrome field data from 94,910 sites, representing millions of real page loads · How we measured