Google Search Console Core Web Vitals (CWV) reporting for mobile is experiencing a dip that is confirmed to be related to the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). Search Console CWV reports for mobile performance show a marked dip beginning around July 10, at which point the reporting appears to stop completely.
Not A Search Console Issue
Someone posted about it on Bluesky
“Hey @johnmu.com is there a known issue or bug with Core Web Vitals reporting in Search Console? Seeing a sudden massive drop in reported URLs (both “good” and “needs improvement”) on mobile as of July 14.”
The person referred to July 14th, but that’s the date the reporting hit zero. The drop actually starts closer to July 10th, which you can see when you hover a cursor at the point that the drops begin.
Google’s John Mueller responded:
“These reports are based on samples of what we know for your site, and sometimes the overall sample size for a site changes. That’s not indicative of a problem. I’d focus on the samples with issues (in your case it looks fine), rather than the absolute counts.”
The person who initially started the discussion responded to inform Mueller that this isn’t just on his site, the peculiar drop in reporting is happening on other sites.
Mueller was unaware of any problem with CWV reporting so he naturally assumed that this was an artifact of natural changes in Internet traffic and user behavior. So his next response continued under the assumption that this wasn’t a widespread issue:
He responded:
“That can happen. The web is dynamic and alive – our systems have to readjust these samples over time.”
Then Jamie Indigo responded to confirm she’s seeing it, too.
“Hey John! Thanks for responding 🙂 It seems like … everyone beyond the usual ebb and flow. Confirming nothing in the mechanics have changed?”
At this point it was becoming clear that this weird behavior wasn’t isolated to just one site and Mueller’s response to Jamie reflected this growing awareness. Mueller confirmed that there’s nothing happening on the Search Console side, leaving it open about the CrUX side of the Core Web Vitals reporting.
His response:
“Correct, nothing in the mechanics changed (at least with regards to Search Console — I’m also not aware of anything on the Chrome / CrUX side, but I’m not as involved there).”
CrUX CWV Field Data
CrUX is the acronym for the Chrome User Experience report. It’s CWV reporting based on real website visits. The data is collected from Chrome browser website visits by users who have opted in to reporting their data for the report.
Google’s Chrome For Developers page explains:
“The Chrome User Experience Report (also known as the Chrome UX Report, or CrUX for short) is a dataset that reflects how real-world Chrome users experience popular destinations on the web.
CrUX is the official dataset of the Web Vitals program. All user-centric Core Web Vitals metrics are represented.
CrUX data is collected from real browsers around the world, based on certain browser options which determine user eligibility. A set of dimensions and metrics are collected which allow site owners to determine how users experience their sites.”
Core Web Vitals Reporting Outage Is Widespread
At this point more people joined the conversation, with Alan Bleiweiss offering both a comment and a screenshot showing the same behavior where the reporting completely drops off is happening on the Search Console CWV reports for other websites.
He posted:
“oooh Google had to slow down server requests to set aside more power to keep the swimming pools cool as the summer heats up.”
Here’s a closeup detail of Alan’s screenshot of a Search Console CWV report:
Screenshot Of CWV Report Showing July 10 Drop
I searched the Chrome Lighthouse changelog to see if there’s anything there that corresponds to the drop but nothing stood out.
So what is going on?
CWV Reporting Outage Is Confirmed
I next checked the X and Bluesky accounts of Googlers who work on the Chrome team and found a post by Barry Pollard, Web Performance Developer Advocate on Google Chrome, who had posted about this issue last week.
Barry posted a note about a reporting outage on Bluesky:
“We’ve noticed another dip on the metrics this month, particularly on mobile. We are actively investigating this and have a potential reason and fix rolling out to reverse this temporary dip. We’ll update further next month. Other than that, there are no further announcements this month.”
Takeaways
Google Search Console Core Web Vitals (CWV) data drop:
A sudden stop in CWV reporting was observed in Google Search Console around July 10, especially on mobile.
Issue is widespread, not site-specific:
Multiple users confirmed the drop across different websites, ruling out individual site problems.
Origin of issue is not at Search Console:
John Mueller confirmed there were no changes on the Search Console side.
Possible link to CrUX data pipeline:
Barry Pollard from the Chrome team confirmed a reporting outage and mentioned a fix may be rolled out at an unspecified time in the future.
We now know that this is a confirmed issue. Google Search Console’s Core Web Vitals reports began showing a reporting outage around July 10, leading users to suspect a bug. The issue was later acknowledged by Barry Pollard as reporting outage affecting CrUX data, particularly on mobile.
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