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Need for speed: Search Engine Ranking Chase Gains Momentum

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Google site speed ranking factorLet me start with this fact: Google is ALL about speed.

It’s evident in their products (like their fairly new Chrome browser) and their constant improvements to Google search engine (like their new Google Instant addition).

Even in their core philosophy, referred to as “Ten Things”, it’s stated:

“Fast is better than slow. We know your time is valuable, so when you’re seeking an answer on the web you want it right away – and we aim to please.”

Read more on that:

With their unquestionable need to speed in mind, Google recently added a new signal in their search engine ranking algorithms:

Site Speed

DEFINITELY watch this great video by Google on what site speed is, how to calculate it, why you should bother with it, and more.

Site speed basically refers to how quickly your site loads in response to web requests.

The quicker it loads, the happier you make both your visitors and Google - and that, my friend, is a great place to be.

So how do you know your site speed is up to par?

Here is a list of tools to help you determine that:

  • Page Speed, an open source Firefox/Firebug add-on that evaluates the performance of web pages and gives suggestions for improvement.
  • YSlow, a free tool from Yahoo! that suggests ways to improve website speed.
  • WebPagetest shows a waterfall view of your pages’ load performance plus an optimization checklist.
  • In Webmaster Tools, Labs > Site Performance shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world.

Of course, site speed is only one of more than 200 factors of Google search algorithm.

Plus, as of right now, it still only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com.

Marketing Takeaway:

Can you afford to ignore site speed for now? Maybe. But I wouldn’t.

Why? Because Google talks too much about it, showing how significant it really is. Plus it makes your readers happy.

Question: Are you going to add site speed tweaking to your to-do list or are you going to just shove this whole idea into a dark “maybe some day” corner of your brain?

 

30 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. All I can say is you should start writing for TGC, Wayne - looks like you have a wealth of information to share on all kinds of topics, judging by some of your latest comments.

    I saw you read my other posts on site speed - I did mention most of these things there, but I appreciate your additions to this post.

    Ana

  4. Ana.. I actually started to work on this right after I saw that video and totally forgot to comment on it. You always seem to find the little things that I’m not doing, and get me to do them. So it’s done. I got Y-Slow and doubled my load page by configuring the Total Cache wordpress plugin.

    Apparently the plugin’s default settings have the cache expire every hour. So I changed them all to 5 years.. and bam - Better Grade!

    thanks for this awesome post
    Hector

  5. Thank you Anna. I am having problems in this specific department. I appreciate this post. I been meaning to get around to working on my page speed but there is just not enough time in the day! Thanks for making it easy to find this information.

    • You’re welcome Aidys. I’m glad I was able to help you. I understand your concern since time is indeed very precious for us bloggers.

      Have a nice day,

      Ana

  6. Ana,
    this kind of post is the reason I keep coming back to your site! I probably never would have found this video, and in all likelyhood would only have heard of this after spending some money on a course by some “guru!”

    I used to check the speed on some of my sites, using Google’s webmaster tools, but stopped when I realized I really didn’t know how to speed things up, other than perhaps use smaller image files. The tip she gave on caching is great, and I’ll probably start to roll that out on my sites in the coming month.

    Thanks again!
    Dan

    • Hello Dan,

      I’am also glad you came by. I’m happy that you we’re able to gain some information from this post. I hope you will keep on coming back.

      Cheers,

      Ana

  7. Site speed has always been important and more so now that Google has recently indicated that it is equally important for ranking. What’s new to me is that you mentioned that it currently applies only to searches made on Google dot com and in English. That I did not know.

    • Yes it does Ditesco. I just learned that. Thanks for stopping by.

      By the way, your current post was wonderful, I’m glad you share those updates.

      Keep it up,

      Julie

  8. Ana,

    Wonderful video you included along with what seem to be some excellent tools for diagnosing any potential site load issues. Little attention to detail things like this can really help a site.

    I think you hit this one out of the park!

    Have a great week!

    • Wow thanks Steve. I’m so glad you like it. I’m happy to know that many people including you appreciate my ideas. It’s all worth the effort and time.

      Cheers to that,

      Ana

  9. Hey Ana,

    Awesome post, I totally agree with you that page loading speed is extremely important, not only to make your readers comfortable while they’re navigating your site but also due to the fact that so many services out there evaluate your site based on speed.

    For example if you have a powerful site and that site has the potential to sell Ad space for a $1000/spot lets say, you could be losing so many customers and so many opportunities simply because your site is slow, that means that only a select few will be able to visit your site since other people on dial up or in other countries where Net speed is limited or have to pay for per/kbps will never ever waste time on you site.

    That’s why you should always look at the total size of each one of your pages and ask yourself, is this accessible on dial-up for example? that way your site is open to all types of incoming connections.

    I love the “List of Tools” you provided in the article, very nice, thank you. 🙂

    • Thanks for sharing your thoughts Sayed. Yes, you’re right and that was a great example of how you could lose readers and visitors due to speed problem.

      Hope to see yo again,

      Ana

  10. Hey Ana,

    Great post, great video. Good to learn what to do if you have speed problems and why you should improve your speed.

    Thanks for sharing the video and your insights.

    All the best,
    Mavis Nong

    • Hello Mavis,

      Thanks for stopping by. Me myself also love that video that’s why I decided to share it so that we can all learn from it.

      Have a nice day

      Ana

  11. Hey Ana,

    From the point of view of someone searching on Google, the added algorithms might prove a blessing. For bloggers however this will turn in just the next obstacle to getting organic traffic. Tweaking widgets, optimizing templates, etc. for better speed will require a lot more time, which might prove especially problematic for part time bloggers that don’t have much of it. Some blogs will gain momentum, while others will lose the top positions. I got a bit carried away. LOL

    Either way that was an interesting read Ana! Great work!

    • You have a point there Daniel. It might require more effort and time for us bloggers to compete especially for newbies whom I think need to double time but not for those who are consistent and totally dedicated. Well.. That’s the name of the game.

      Cheers

      Ana

  13. Yes, I do care on page load time. It is a very important aspect for a blog. There are several factors affect the page load time starting from the web host. Still I am tweaking my site to improve the page load time.

  14. Ana, I do pay attention to page load speed, but I balance that against what I want my blogs to do.

    For example, I have a hiking blog where many of the posts have several pictures. Since hiking is highly visual and pics are important, I go with larger pictures at higher resolution, and this, of course, increases my page loading time. But it’s worth it to me. I may take a small hit on SERP, but the visitors I do get will appreciate my site more.

  15. I definitely keep tabs on my site speed, Ana. If it ever creeps-up into the high two-second range, then I have to take a more in-depth look at what is going wrong. Most of the time, this is an incorrectly formated image, but I have also run into server problems that have forced me to change hosts.

  16. Hi Ana,

    It is very true, Google are very fussy about speed. They have 200,000 computers at their headquarters to cater for the massive amount of bandwidth needed to generate and support the millions of users online.