Web performance

Monitor and improve Core Web Vitals for your Align store with Shopify Web Performance reports.

Online store web performance

Shopify’s Web Performance dashboard measures how visitors experience your Align online store, including loading speed, interaction responsiveness, and visual stability. Use it to understand the customer journey from the first page load through unexpected movement caused by content such as pop-ups.

These measurements help you prioritize improvements that support a smoother shopping experience, conversion, and discoverability. Company XYZ can help with Align-specific questions; use Shopify’s reports to identify whether a theme customization, app, or store content warrants investigation.

How web performance is measured

Web performance is measured with key metrics known as Core Web Vitals.

Metric	What it measures	Good result
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)	Loading speed, based on how quickly the largest element or main content becomes visible	Main content loads within 2.5 seconds of the page-load start
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)	Responsiveness, based on how long the page takes to provide visual feedback after an interaction such as selecting a link or button	Less than 200 milliseconds
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)	Visual stability, based on how much content moves unexpectedly while loading	Less than 0.1

Google also evaluates mobile compatibility, safe browsing, HTTPS security, and the absence of intrusive interstitials. Intrusive interstitials obstruct a full view of the content, such as promotional pop-ups or age-verification prompts. Together, these factors help evaluate a page’s performance and user experience.

Why web performance matters

Your store’s performance can affect the customer experience, conversion rate, and discoverability.

Experience and conversion

A fast-loading store with smooth interactions creates a better experience across devices and connection speeds. When a site is slow or difficult to navigate, visitors are more likely to leave before they buy something

Improving web performance can make shopping easier and support stronger conversion rates

Discoverability

Search engines such as Google use page speed as a ranking factor. Pages that perform poorly across the Core Web Vitals might rank lower, even when the store is otherwise optimized for search engines

Improving performance can increase your store’s chances of ranking higher and gaining more search visibility.

Balance store features and performance

Your Align store can include theme customizations, apps, images, videos, carousels, social feeds, and analytics. These features can improve the visitor experience and extend what your store can do, but every additional feature can affect Core Web Vitals.

Some features slow down a page or create unexpected behavior. Before adding or keeping a feature, weigh its customer benefit against its effect on performance.

Ask these questions:

What helps customers decide to buy? Consider whether customers would benefit more from a simple homepage linking to detailed product pages, or from a more feature-rich homepage that lets them view and buy products quickly.
What belongs near the top of the page? Branding, featured images, and a checkout cart can affect performance, but they can also support conversion.
What can load after customers scroll? Analytics and product reviews do not need to load immediately when someone arrives. Consult your theme or app developer if you need to confirm whether a feature loads right away.

View web performance data

To view web performance reports, you need the Reports staff permission. To populate the dashboard with Real User Metrics (RUM), remove your online store’s password protection

You can open web performance over-time reports from the performance metric summary on the Themes page. You can also find all web performance reports in the Reports list in your Shopify admin.

View the performance metric summary

The performance metric summary on the Themes page provides a quick view of your three Core Web Vitals over time. Learn more about the performance metric summary

From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes
Optional: Use the date picker to show Today, Last 7 days, or Last 30 days.
Optional: Select a metric in the summary to open its report.
- Select LCP P75 (ms) for the Largest Contentful Paint: Over Time report
- Select INP P75 (ms) for the Interaction to Next Paint: Over Time report
- Select Cumulative Layout Shift for the Cumulative Layout Shift: Over Time report
- Select Sessions by Device Type for the Sessions by device type report

View web performance reports

Multiple web performance reports are available from the Reports list. Use the configuration panel or ShopifyQL query editor to tailor a report to the data you need. Learn more about using Shopify reports

From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports
Search for the report you want.
- Search : to display all web performance reports.
- Search contentful for Largest Contentful Paint reports.
- Search next for Interaction to Next Paint reports.
- Search cumulative for Cumulative Layout Shift reports.
Select the report name to open it.

Understand the performance metric summary

The web performance metric summary uses real-user data from the past 30 days to assess your store against the three Core Web Vitals. Each metric receives a Good, Moderate, or Poor ranking based on the experience of the top 75% of users.

The summary includes:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which reflects loading speed and how quickly the largest visible element appears.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP), which reflects responsiveness and the time before the browser paints the next frame or visible change after an interaction, such as selecting a link or button.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which reflects how much content moves unexpectedly as the page loads or is navigated.
Online visitor sessions by device type.

Core Web Vital	Ranking	Target metric	What it means
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)	Good	Less than or equal to 2500 ms	Most users experience a fast page load
	Moderate	Greater than 2500 ms and less than 4000 ms	Some users experience a fast load, but there is room to improve
	Poor	Greater than 4000 ms	Most users experience a slow page load and this should be improved
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)	Good	Less than or equal to 200 ms	Most users experience good page responsiveness
	Moderate	Greater than 200 ms and less than 500 ms	Some users experience good responsiveness, but there is room to improve
	Poor	Greater than 500 ms	Most users experience slow, frustrating responsiveness and this should be improved
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)	Good	Less than or equal to 0.1	Most users experience a stable layout while the page loads
	Moderate	Greater than 0.1 and less than 0.25	Some users experience a stable layout, but there is room to improve
	Poor	Greater than or equal to 0.25	Most users experience an unstable layout, which can be annoying and should be improved

When a metric is Moderate or Poor, use the Web Performance reports to investigate likely causes and decide what to improve.

Use web performance reports

Once the performance metric summary has enough data to score the Core Web Vitals, use the reports to narrow down pages and changes that may be affecting your results. This lets you make better-informed decisions about where to optimize.

Customer device, network, and location are outside your control. Visitors use different devices and internet connections around the world, so individual dates or pages can be moderate or poor even when your overall metric is good. Focus on the overall result rather than isolated outliers.

Review performance over time

Use these reports to see how each Core Web Vital changes over time:

By default, these reports show the 75th percentile for the relevant Core Web Vital in milliseconds. Use the configuration panel to customize a report, and adjust Dimensions and Filters such as time range, date grouping, and device type. Learn more about customizing your reports

The line chart shows how changes such as app installations, Align theme updates, and new code may have affected a Core Web Vital over time. It includes:

A web performance Summary score for the selected date range.
Numbered vertical event annotations that you can hover over to view store changes that might affect performance.
Horizontal threshold lines showing the boundaries between Good, Moderate, and Poor results.

The distribution metric column in the data table includes a bar chart showing page visits in each category: good (green), moderate (yellow), and poor (red).

Review performance by page URL

Use these reports to find individual URLs that may need attention:

These reports show the 75th percentile for the relevant Core Web Vital in milliseconds by default. Use the configuration panel, Dimensions, and Filters to refine the time range, date grouping, device type, and other details. See customizing your reports

Page URL reports do not include a graphical visualization. They show only the data table, with Page path as the default primary dimension. The distribution metric bar chart shows page visits that are good (green), moderate (yellow), or poor (red).

Review performance by page type

Use these reports to see whether a page category is contributing to a performance issue:

These reports show the 75th percentile for the relevant Core Web Vital in milliseconds by default. Customize them with the configuration panel, Dimensions, and Filters such as time range, date grouping, and device type. Learn more about customizing your reports

Page type reports do not include a graphical visualization. They display the data table, with Page type as the default primary dimension, and a distribution bar for good (green), moderate (yellow), and poor (red) page visits.

Investigate an issue

Review the performance metric summary to identify the Core Web Vital that needs attention.
For that metric, use all three report views to narrow down the issue.
- Use Over Time to identify when a score changed.
- Use Page Type to check whether particular page templates are affected.
- Use Page URL to identify specific affected pages.
Compare the timing with changes to your store, then use the pages and elements you identify to make a focused improvement.
For detailed improvement guidance, see Improving your online store performance

Frequently asked questions

Why was the Google Lighthouse speed score removed?

Google Lighthouse uses simulated environments for speed scores. It is useful for a quick snapshot, but it does not represent real user experiences. Google now prioritizes Core Web Vitals for SEO rankings; learn more from Google

Why do I not have scores yet?

Your store is password protected. A password-protected store does not receive the real-user traffic needed to generate Core Web Vitals. Remove the password page to let users visit the site.
Your store does not have traffic yet. Without page views, there are no real-user metrics to report.

Why do I have traffic but no Core Web Vital scores?

Core Web Vitals are a Google product and are currently available only in Chromium-based browsers. Modern browsers such as Safari and Safari iOS use similar technologies, so the metrics still accurately represent how users experience your website.

Why do I have scores for some metrics but not others?

Each metric measures a different part of the experience and depends on different visitor activity. For example, Largest Contentful Paint measures page loading, while Interaction to Next Paint measures how quickly the page responds visually after an interaction. If visitors do not interact with the page, the INP metric might not receive a score.

Why did a score change?

Scores can change because of traffic volume or store updates. If low traffic causes large fluctuations, try a weekly or monthly filter.

Scores can also change after you import products, create collections, change Align, customize its code, or add an app. Learn about factors that can impact your online store performance

How can I improve my score or ranking?

See Improving your online store performance for improvement guidance.

Why do dashboard scores differ from other tools?

The Web Performance dashboard can differ from other tools for these reasons:

Timezone. Dashboard data uses the UTC standard, which can differ from another tool’s timezone.
Data collection. The dashboard gathers a broader data set from Chromium browsers including Chrome, Opera, Edge, and Samsung Internet, as well as Firefox. Tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights use the CrUX report for opted-in Chrome browsers. Learn more about CrUX data
Performance guidance. Review Improving your online store performance before comparing results or planning changes.

Improve online store performance

Many factors affect online store performance. Some are within your control, while others depend on your customers or infrastructure. Start by checking your Web Performance report to understand current results.

Factors you cannot control

Customer device, network, and location

Customers visit from different locations, devices, and internet connections. As a result, the same store can load faster or slower for different visitors.

When a customer reports that the store is slow, ask them to confirm the following:

Their browser is up to date.
They have recently cleared their browser cache.
Their internet service provider is not experiencing an outage or degraded service.

Shopify infrastructure

Shopify hosts online stores on fast, global servers without limiting store bandwidth. Check the status of your Shopify store through Shopify Status

Ongoing infrastructure and code improvements can be reflected in performance metrics. The following services and features can also affect speed.

Content delivery network (CDN)

A CDN, or content delivery network, stores images and other files, including content uploaded in Content > Files. Shopify provides a global CDN run by Cloudflare to help stores load quickly around the world.

Check CDN availability on the Cloudflare status page

Local browser cache

Your store temporarily saves some elements in a customer’s local browser storage. On a later visit, the browser can load cached resources instead of making another server request.

Shopify sets cacheable store resources to one year for each file. Cacheable resources include images, PDFs, JS files, and CSS files.

Server-side page cache

Pages are also cached on the server. The first page load can be slower, while later loads can be faster because visitors receive a cached copy.

Assets in `content_for_header`

The content_for_header Liquid object adds assets used by a range of online store features, including performance analytics and optional features such as dynamic checkout buttons. Loading this object and its related assets affects store speed, and Shopify continues to optimize the tag and its assets.

Factors you can control

Apps

Apps that change your store’s functionality or appearance can add code to Align so they can run. Removing, reordering, or disabling unneeded app functionality can improve performance.

If an app may be slowing down your store:

Deactivate app features you don’t use, or remove the app if it is no longer needed. Consider the balance between online store features and speed
When removing an app, consider removing code added during installation. Most apps remove their own code automatically, but confirm this with the app developer. Some apps identify their code with {% comment %} tags that include the app name. Removing unused app code avoids running code for features you no longer use and makes your theme easier to maintain.
Consult the app developer for guidance.

Align theme and customizations

Align uses Liquid, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Customizations can increase file sizes and affect web performance.

If Align or a customization may be contributing to slow performance:

Deactivate theme features you don’t use. Consider the balance between online store features and speed
Consider a system font
For an Align-specific question, review Company XYZ documentation or contact Company XYZ support.

Theme or app features

Enabled features can affect performance. For example, a quick-view pop-up might preload information from every product on a collection page. Loading data that customers do not use can slow the page without adding value.

Deactivate features you do not need. Consider the balance between online store features and performance
Ask your theme and app developers whether a feature preloads data.

Complex or inefficient Liquid code

Almost all Liquid used to render a store can be edited, but repeated complex operations can increase Liquid render time and affect overall performance. For example, sort products in a collection by price before looping through the products, rather than sorting within the loop. The order does not change for each product, so recalculating it repeatedly adds processing time.

If you are concerned that code is not optimized:

Run Shopify Theme Inspector for Chrome to identify code lines that slow down store pages.
Hire a Shopify Partner to identify inefficient or unnecessary code.

Images and videos

Oversized images and images hidden from view can delay more important page content. When customers wait for large images to load, the store can feel slow.

Shopify includes safeguards that help limit this impact:

Collection pages cannot have more than 50 products, and homepages cannot have more than 25 sections.
Many themes defer images that are not currently onscreen.
Many themes load an image size based on the screen size where it appears.

These safeguards do not completely prevent images and videos from affecting performance. If media may be slowing down your store:

Review the image optimization guide
Limit featured-image slideshows to two or three slides, or use one featured image.
Ask your theme developer for the best way to use images in your theme.

Fonts

Fonts affect performance because any font not already on a visitor’s device must be delivered before the browser can render text with it. Custom fonts add files to the page, and large or unoptimized files increase the amount each visitor must download.

Use custom fonts carefully. When possible, choose modern, optimized font files and avoid unnecessary weights, styles, and character sets. Fonts from Shopify’s own font library are already optimized for use with Shopify themes, but it is still best to keep the number of font families low.

As a general guideline, use no more than two custom font families per shop, such as one for headings and one for body text. More font families mean more files to download, which can slow loading, especially on mobile devices and slower connections.

Usage notes

Start with the overall trend. Prioritize a Core Web Vital when its summary ranking is consistently Moderate or Poor, rather than reacting to a single weak page or date.
Investigate in sequence. Use over-time reports to find when a change occurred, then page-type and page-URL reports to locate the affected templates and pages.
Compare changes with customer value. Keep features that help shoppers buy, but disable or defer features that add little value and load unnecessary data.
Account for traffic volume. Use weekly or monthly filters when low traffic makes daily data fluctuate sharply.
Make focused changes. Change one likely cause at a time when possible, then allow enough real-user data to accumulate before judging the result.