GitHub READMEs have Shields.io badges. Websites had nothing — until now. The FeedPulse Lighthouse badge auto-refreshes weekly via Google's free PageSpeed Insights API, displaying your live Performance, SEO, Accessibility, and Best Practices scores — the only free Core Web Vitals badge widget on the web.
What does the Lighthouse badge show?
Four 0-100 scores from Google Lighthouse, refreshed weekly: Performance (Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, CLS), SEO (meta, structure, mobile-friendly), Accessibility (WCAG basics), and Best Practices (HTTPS, deprecated APIs, console errors). All sourced live from Google's official PageSpeed Insights API.
Why your site needs a Lighthouse badge
Performance is now a Google ranking factor. Displaying your live Lighthouse scores publicly does two things at once: pressures you to keep them green, and signals to visitors that you care about web standards. Indie devs, agencies, and SaaS teams use it as a perpetual report card.
Core Web Vitals — explained
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures load speed — should be under 2.5s. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures responsiveness — should be under 200ms. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability — should be under 0.1. All three feed your Lighthouse Performance score.
Drop it on any platform — one HTML snippet
Paste the badge anywhere — WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Webflow, Ghost, Squarespace, Blogger. The badge re-fetches its scores every 7 days, so it stays current without any work on your end.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a Lighthouse score?
- Lighthouse is Google's official open-source web auditing tool — it grades any URL on four 0-100 scales: Performance (how fast it loads), SEO (technical SEO health), Accessibility (WCAG basics), and Best Practices (HTTPS, console errors, deprecated APIs). The score Google's own algorithm sees, exposed publicly via the PageSpeed Insights API.
- What's a good Lighthouse score?
- Aim for 90+ on all four. Google considers 90-100 'good', 50-89 'needs improvement', 0-49 'poor'. Performance is the hardest score to keep above 90 because mobile networks throttle it, but the other three are mostly engineering hygiene — fixable in a single afternoon for most sites.
- How often does the Lighthouse badge update?
- The embedded badge refreshes weekly via Google's free PageSpeed Insights API. This keeps the score current without hammering Google's quota or your visitors' load time. The dashboard shows the latest score on every page load.
- Does Lighthouse score affect Google ranking?
- Yes — directly. Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS — the three metrics that feed your Lighthouse Performance score) became a Google ranking signal in 2021. Mobile-first indexing means mobile Lighthouse scores matter more than desktop. A bad LCP can demote you several positions for competitive queries.
- What are Core Web Vitals?
- Three measurable user-experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP, should be < 2.5s — measures load speed), Interaction to Next Paint (INP, should be < 200ms — measures responsiveness), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS, should be < 0.1 — measures visual stability). All three feed your Lighthouse Performance score.