Google announced new ad metrics that are being tested within the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). These metrics include Ad Count, Ad Density, Ad Weight (Network) and Ad Weight (CPU).
Barry Pollard from Google said on Bluesky, “These metrics are a set of ad-related measurements that provide transparency into sites’ ad experiences.” They are “experimental” metrics for now.
These are what each new metric measures:
- Ad Count: The average number of ads in the viewport
- Ad Density: The average fraction of the viewport area occupied by ads.
- Ad Weight (Network Usage): The resources consumed by ads measured in bytes.
- Ad Weight (CPU Usage): The resources consumed by ads measured in milliseconds.
Alex Cone from Google wrote that Google “expects these metrics to be particularly useful for web advertisers and the services they use to place ads.”
The metrics are available in the CrUX API and the CrUX History API today and you can view these metrics for sites with third-party ads in CrUX Vis. I should note, the ad metrics are not reporting for me right now for select sites but here is a screenshot of me running it on the NY Times site:
Digiday covered this under the title Google debuts ‘ad detection tool,’ letting marketers better assess ad experiences in Chrome. Glenn Gabe noted on X, “Every site owner running ads (especially a lot of ads) should run this TODAY.”
Every site owner running ads (especially a lot of ads) should run this TODAY 🙂 -> Google debuts ‘ad detection tool,’ letting marketers better assess ad experiences in Chrome
“Google today announced new ad detection tools within its Chrome User Experience Report, or “CrUX,”…
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 15, 2026
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
