{"id":1029,"slug":"mobile-cwv-pass-rates-2025-and-3-second-abandonment","title":"Mobile Core Web Vitals reality 2025: only 48% of mobile sites and 43.44% of WordPress mobile origins pass; INP replaced FID March 12 2024; Dec 2025 Google core update increased page-experience weight; 53% of mobile visits abandoned if site takes >3 seconds (Google/DoubleClick 2016); 58% of Google searches now zero-click","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","claude-code","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["seo-content","core-web-vitals","measurement","inp-optimization","lead-gen-directories","homestars"],"reference_body":"## Mobile CWV pass rates — the structural baseline\n\n**Claim:** Per the **HTTP Archive Web Almanac 2025** (using July 2025 CrUX):\n\n- **48% of mobile sites pass all three Core Web Vitals** (LCP, INP, CLS)\n- **56% of desktop sites pass**\n- Year-over-year mobile pass rate: **36% (2023) → 44% (2024) → 48% (2025)**\n\n**Source:** almanac.httparchive.org/en/2025/performance.\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**WordPress specifically:**\n\n- **43.44% of WordPress mobile origins pass CWV** as of June 2025 per the CrUX Technology Report (summarized by Search Engine Journal); updated late-2025 data has it at ~45–46% (HostingStep; Ben Ryan)\n- **Failure mode is NOT INP** (85.9% pass rate) **but LCP and TTFB** — only ~32% of WordPress sites have good TTFB, driven by shared hosting (CoreDash analysis; SEJ)\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n## INP became the responsiveness Core Web Vital on March 12, 2024\n\n**Source:** web.dev.\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\nGoogle's **December 2025 core update increased the weight of page-experience signals** beyond their previous tie-breaker role.\n\n**Source:** Ben Ryan / Search Engine Journal coverage.\n**Confidence:** Industry-consensus.\n\n## The 53% mobile-abandonment threshold — still canonical\n\nThe canonical source is **Google/DoubleClick's \"The Need for Mobile Speed\"** (September 2016, Think with Google):\n\n- **n=3,700 aggregated Google Analytics samples**, March 2016\n- **\"53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load\"**\n\n**Sources:** Think with Google; restated in Google AdSense Help.\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\nThe 2016 study **remains the single most-cited number on mobile abandonment** because nothing comparably-sized has replaced it. Treat as Verified for the 3-second threshold; the underlying user behaviour has likely intensified, not weakened, in the intervening decade.\n\n## Zero-click reality\n\n**58% of Google searches result in zero clicks to external websites**, per SparkToro research. WSI's 2025 AI-era visibility report restates:\n\n> *\"Zero-click searches now account for nearly 60% of Google activity, signalling a tectonic shift in how people engage with search results.\"*\n\n**Sources:** SparkToro; WSI 2025.\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n## Why this matters for Candid use — the contractor-specific implication\n\nMost contractor websites are **WordPress** (W3Techs has WordPress at ~43.4% of all websites). Most contractor sites use **heavy page builders** (Elementor, Divi, WPBakery) on **shared hosting**. The statistical baseline is that **more than half of contractor sites fail Google's mobile CWV as of mid-2025**.\n\nCombined with the 4-touch buyer journey at [[multi-touch-buyer-journey-discovery-validation-verification-contact]], this means:\n\n> **A buyer who finds a contractor on HomeStars, then Google-searches the contractor's name on mobile, and clicks through to the contractor's site, has a statistically meaningful chance of abandoning before the site finishes loading.**\n\n**The HomeStars lead is wasted at the contractor's own front door.**\n\n## Caveat — field-sample audit not yet conducted\n\nA field sample of 25 Ontario GC websites is a research item Candid Creative should run before publishing a consumer-facing article. Placeholder estimate based on platform mix + CrUX baseline: **60–70% likely to fail CWV on mobile** [Directional — derived from HTTP Archive 2025 WordPress pass rates, adjusted upward for builder-heavy construction vertical].\n\nSee [[rule-contractor-website-cwv-is-load-bearing-second-touch]] for the codified rule that follows.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-homestars-platform-critique","title":"Research brief: HomeStars / Angi — the case against directory dependence, with the owned-trust-signal alternative for Ontario contractors (May 24, 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"multi-touch-buyer-journey-discovery-validation-verification-contact","title":"Multi-touch buyer journey for residential construction / major renovation: 4-touch sequence (discovery → validation → verification → contact); the contractor's own website is the 2nd or 3rd surface, not the 1st","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-contractor-website-cwv-is-load-bearing-second-touch","title":"Rule: a contractor's own website Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) is a LOAD-BEARING trust signal — it is the 2nd or 3rd surface in the buyer journey; >50% of WordPress contractor sites currently fail mobile CWV; the HomeStars lead is wasted at the contractor's own front door","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-24T17:04:39.743Z","updated_at":"2026-05-24T17:04:39.743Z"}