Google is introducing a new label to the Chrome browser, which highlights particular pages with speedy load times. The browser will show a “fast page” label which is based on the user experience and load times.
This is based on the Core Web Vitals – when these are met or exceeded, then the page will be labelled as a fast page.
Essentially this allows people using the Chrome browser to see whether a page they wish to visit is fast and responsive to use. While this is probably quite a niche use, it at least indicates how important load speed times are to Google, and will continue to be for SEO in the future.
If the page in question has been historically fast for other users, the label will be displayed. Google has said on the Chromium blog:
To help users identify great experiences as they browse, we are excited to announce that Chrome will begin to highlight high quality user experiences on the web, starting with the labelling of fast links via the link context menu on Chrome for Android. This change will be rolling out starting in Chrome 85 Beta.
https://blog.chromium.org/2020/08/highlighting-great-user-experiences-on.html
As it stands, this feature is rolling out on Chrome 85 on Android devices, but will surely be reaching other platforms soon enough. In order to give it a go, you can activate it under chrome://flags and enable the context menu performance info.
Chrome 85 is currently in the public beta testing stage, but once it is officially launched, then this feature will be more widely seen.
As for the future, Google had this to say:
We believe the web serves a critical role in our lives, and hope that fast labelling proves helpful to users who are on slow or spotty network connections. Over time, we may also experiment with labelling in other parts of Chrome’s UI. Ultimately, our goal is to provide users of the web with a healthy level of transparency into the experience they may have with a page. Chrome is committed to working with the ecosystem to ensure a thriving web, and the steps we take, such as the ones outlined above, are designed with these goals in mind.
