Figma Sites migration yields 39-second LCP, stalled indexing
Summary
A Webflow-to-Figma Sites migration produced a 39-second LCP because Figma Sites appears to rely on client-side rendering, meaning Googlebot has to execute a heavy JS bundle before seeing any content. The 30 crawled-but-not-indexed blog posts and 2,000 new 404s are two separate problems: the first is a rendering architecture failure, the second is missing redirect mappings.
What happened
A site owner reported in r/TechSEO that migrating from Webflow to Figma Sites in mid-March 2026 caused severe SEO degradation. Search Console data showed roughly 2,000 new 404 errors and Core Web Vitals drops in April. PageSpeed Insights reported a 39-second LCP with 680ms TBT on blog pages, and 30 blog articles were crawled but not indexed.
The poster’s theory is that Figma Sites relies heavily on client-side rendering. Webflow served pages server-side, so content loaded immediately. Figma Sites apparently requires the browser to download and execute a large JavaScript bundle before displaying anything.
One commenter responded with disbelief at the 39-second LCP figure, calling it “borderline unusable.”
Why it matters
A 39-second LCP is a catastrophic Core Web Vitals failure, far beyond the 2.5-second threshold for “Good.” But the deeper problem is rendering architecture.
Googlebot renders JavaScript using a headless Chromium instance. Google’s JavaScript SEO documentation confirms that Googlebot needs to execute JavaScript to see content on pages that rely heavily on client-side rendering (where the browser builds the page from JavaScript rather than receiving ready-made HTML). At 39 seconds of rendering time, Googlebot may deprioritize the page before the page structure (DOM) becomes readable, though Google has not documented a specific timeout threshold.
The 30 crawled-but-not-indexed blog posts are a predictable outcome of that delay.
The 2,000 new 404s point to a separate problem: URL structure likely changed during migration, and redirect mappings are missing or incomplete. For this smaller site, the rendering failure is the more likely cause of indexing problems, but the 404s still waste crawl capacity that could reach indexable pages. This mirrors a pattern seen with other CSR-heavy migrations.
The poster also mentioned that their team wants to prioritize fixing missing alt tags and H1 issues. Alt text and heading structure are basic SEO hygiene. They will not move the needle when Googlebot cannot finish rendering the page in the first place. Google cannot evaluate content it never sees.
Design-to-site tools like Figma Sites default to client-side rendering for ease of iteration. For sites that need indexing, CSR creates a hard constraint that on-page tweaks cannot fix. Whether the problem is solvable depends on whether Figma Sites supports static export or server-side rendering.
What to do
Diagnose the rendering pipeline first. View source on your Figma Sites pages and check what HTML is delivered before JavaScript executes. If the initial HTML payload is an empty shell with a JS bundle, you are fully CSR-dependent. Compare this against what Googlebot sees using the URL Inspection tool’s “View Tested Page” in Search Console.
Fix the 404s before anything else. Export your old Webflow URL list and map every path to its new Figma Sites equivalent. Implement 301 redirects for all changed URLs. The 2,000 new 404s are wasting crawl capacity on dead ends. A redirect map is the fastest win available.
Check Search Console’s indexing reasons. Look at whether the 30 unindexed blog posts show “Crawled, currently not indexed” or “Discovered, not currently indexed.” The first status covers a broad range of signals. Rendering failures, thin content, duplicate content, and quality issues among them.
Use the URL Inspection tool’s “View Tested Page” and the “More Info” reason to narrow down whether the cause is rendering, quality, or duplication. “Discovered, not currently indexed” means Googlebot hasn’t even attempted to render the page yet. Each status points to a different root cause.
Measure rendering time from Googlebot’s perspective. PageSpeed Insights shows lab and field data (CrUX). Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report also uses CrUX, but only populates when a URL has enough traffic. Post-migration traffic drops may leave both tools empty, making URL Inspection your primary diagnostic.
Investigate SSG or SSR options in Figma Sites. If the platform supports static export or server-side rendering, switch to it. If it does not, dynamic rendering (pre-rendered HTML to crawlers, CSR to users) was historically a stopgap. Google now treats it as deprecated and recommends SSR or static generation instead. If Figma Sites has no SSR or SSG path, evaluate whether the platform is viable for SEO-dependent pages.
Deprioritize alt tags and H1 fixes. These have zero impact while Googlebot cannot render the page.
Watch out for
Soft 404s masquerading as 200s. Some of those 2,000 “404s” may actually be pages that return a 200 status but render an empty or error state after JavaScript fails. Check whether Googlebot is flagging any pages as soft 404s in Search Console’s coverage report.
Redirect chains from Webflow’s old structure. If Webflow had its own redirects in place before migration, your new 301s may create chains (old URL → Webflow redirect → new Figma URL). Chains slow crawling and increase the risk of Googlebot not following deep hop sequences. Audit for chains using Screaming Frog or a similar crawler and flatten them to single hops.