If your Google Search Console Core Web Vitals Report is showing no data or only partial data, you might be wondering why. Core Web Vitals (CWV) is a crucial performance metric that Google uses to assess user experience, but not every website will have enough data to generate a full report.
This guide explains:
✅ Why your Core Web Vitals report may show “Not enough usage data”
✅ Why fewer URLs are reported than expected
✅ How Core Web Vitals data is collected
✅ How to measure your site’s performance when there’s no data
✅ Whether missing data impacts rankings
Why Don’t I Have Core Web Vitals Data in Search Console?
Google Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report relies on real-world user data collected via the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
How CrUX Data Collection Works:
🔹 Data comes from real Chrome users visiting your site.
🔹 Only users who are logged in to Chrome, have sync enabled, and have opted into usage reporting contribute to the dataset.
🔹 iOS users are not included (since Chrome on iOS uses a different rendering engine).
🔹 The data is aggregated over a rolling 28-day period and updated with a slight delay.
Because of these factors, if there isn’t enough traffic or data collected, Google won’t report anything in Core Web Vitals.
Common Core Web Vitals Data Issues & How to Fix Them
1️⃣ “Not Enough Usage Data in the Last 90 Days” Warning
If you see this message in Search Console, it means there weren’t enough users interacting with your site during the last 28-day data period.
🔹 Why This Happens:
- Your site is small or has low traffic.
- You have fewer Chrome visitors (or most visitors use iOS).
- Your pages have too little engagement for meaningful CWV data.
🔹 What You Can Do:
✅ Increase real-world traffic to the affected pages.
✅ Ensure your site is well-indexed and accessible.
✅ Use Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse to analyze performance (since Googlebot does not contribute to CrUX data).
2️⃣ Some Pages Have Core Web Vitals Data, but Many Are Missing
🔹 Why This Happens:
- Core Web Vitals reports on groups of similar pages, not individual URLs.
- Google may only report on pages that receive enough user traffic.
- Some page templates may have low engagement, leading to missing data.
🔹 What You Can Do:
✅ Use Google’s URL Inspection Tool to check whether individual URLs are indexed and receiving traffic.
✅ Monitor which page groups are included in the report and focus on improving those.
3️⃣ Seeing Data for Mobile but Not Desktop (or Vice Versa)
🔹 Why This Happens:
- Your site has more mobile visitors than desktop users, or the other way around.
- If most visitors use mobile devices, there may not be enough desktop traffic to generate data.
🔹 What You Can Do:
✅ Check Google Analytics (or another traffic analysis tool) to see your site’s desktop vs. mobile visitor ratio.
✅ Optimize both mobile and desktop performance in case traffic shifts in the future.
How to Measure Core Web Vitals Without Search Console Data
If Search Console isn’t showing Core Web Vitals data, you can still measure performance manually:
1️⃣ Use Google PageSpeed Insights
🔹 Provides real-world (CrUX) data and lab test results using Lighthouse.
🔹 Allows you to test individual pages even if CrUX data is missing.
🔹 Visit: PageSpeed Insights
2️⃣ Use Lighthouse (Built into Chrome DevTools)
🔹 Tests your site’s Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
🔹 Works locally, without needing real-world user data.
🔹 Steps:
1️⃣ Open Chrome → Right-click → Inspect
2️⃣ Go to the Lighthouse tab
3️⃣ Click Analyze Page Load
3️⃣ Monitor Performance Using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) + BigQuery
🔹 GA4 allows advanced tracking of real-time user performance metrics.
🔹 You can integrate BigQuery for deeper analysis.
🔹 Guide: Core Web Vitals & GA4
Does Missing Core Web Vitals Data Hurt Rankings?
🔹 No, your site will NOT rank lower just because you don’t have CWV data.
- Core Web Vitals is a small ranking factor—other signals like content quality and relevance are much more important.
- Google does not penalize sites for missing CrUX data; it simply ignores Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor in such cases.
Why Did My Traffic Drop Along with My Core Web Vitals Data?
🔹 Traffic drops can cause CrUX data to disappear, not the other way around.
- If fewer users visit your site, fewer data points are collected, leading to missing Core Web Vitals data.
- The drop in URLs tracked in Core Web Vitals is likely a symptom of the traffic decline, rather than the cause.
Why Do the Number of URLs in Core Web Vitals Reports Keep Changing?
🔹 This happens because:
- Traffic levels fluctuate, affecting data collection.
- Google may re-group URLs into new page groups, affecting which pages appear in the report.
- Sometimes, traffic that meets Google’s eligibility criteria for CrUX fluctuates over time.
✅ Key Tip:
If you see a drop in URLs marked as ‘Good’ but no corresponding rise in ‘Needs Improvement’ or ‘Poor’, it’s likely due to fewer eligible data points rather than actual performance issues.
Final Takeaways: How to Handle Missing Core Web Vitals Data
✔ Check the warning message in Search Console to confirm the reason for missing data.
✔ Use PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse for lab tests if CrUX data is unavailable.
✔ Analyze user traffic—low visitor numbers may be the cause of missing data.
✔ Optimize your site for better performance even if no CrUX data is available.
✔ Don’t worry about ranking penalties—Google does not penalize sites for missing CWV data.
For more details:
🔹 Google’s Core Web Vitals Report Support Doc
🔹 Google’s Web.Dev Guide to Core Web Vitals
🔹 Chrome UX Report (CrUX) Documentation
If you’re experiencing Core Web Vitals issues in Search Console, focus on improving site performance and increasing traffic, and use alternative tools like Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights to track your progress.
