Google's weighting of Page Load speed
-
Hey, we recently optimised our website page load speed as part of our overall optimisation.
Page load speed according to the Google Developers Page Speed test was previously 51 out of 100 and is now 92 out of 100 and this was improved within the last seven days gradually, cached half way through the improvement process.
I appreciate this is regarded as only a small part of the whole process, however, I’d be interested to know if anyone has a concrete opinion/proof on whether such a big improvement would actually make a difference to our rankings in the SERPs.
-
Thanks Alex, nice share.
-
Matt Cutts stated that only in 1 out of 100 searches does page speed show a noticeable change in rankings, and there are only 1 in a 1000 sites which have slow speed as a big issue: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO4YuDAkplU
I have a page on one website which has on-page SEO close to perfection for a relatively competitive term, and a few relevant links coming in. There was a query in the SQL on the page that slowed it down - I think the load time was about 4 or 5 seconds. After a few weeks (it wasn't an important page and I knew it would be an interesting test) I fixed the problem and got the load time down to around a second. The following day the page jumped from nowhere (not even the top 20 pages) to page 4 on Google, so that must have been one of the 1 in a 100.
-
Thanks, some interesting stats. Our main pages have a pretty good bounce rate but the blogs are not as good. I think we may find an advantage here.
-
I think, as Barry says, you'll see more improvement in what your visitors do on your site, then what Google brings you. Don't mix up cause and effect. I think because your visitors stay longer, Google will see that. And reward you accordingly.
The numbers don't say a lot, it's more the actual load time. You'll see that bounce rates and pages per visit will go up. I manage a website where we managed to cut the bounce rate in half. avg visit time up 40%, pages p/visit up 30%. Our visit rate went up by nearly 80%. So that was remarkable. And guess where the visitors came from: Google.
-
Thanks for the reply, sat at position 2 before the change and still sat at position 2 now after the change but hey expect we would be there so no great surprise.
Checked it in Pingdom too as we had researched this before making the changes. Interestingly I ran it 5 mins ago and it said load time 4.3 secs. Ran it again and it comes up as 1.8 secs. Seems a bit buggy today.
My opinion is that it wont make a significant difference on it's own but as part of an overall aim, it makes a slight difference.
Just wondering if anyone has seen significant improvements and can demonstrate them.
-
Well, surely you're now in an excellent position to tell all of us?!
I don't think the issue is whether going from 51 > 92 will help, but more whether you've gone from X seconds to less than 1.5 seconds.
In webmaster tools if you look at labs > site performance, you should see a graph of your time.
Can also use something like - http://tools.pingdom.com/ - to check how fast a page loads.
I would suggest collecting your own data (especially since you've already made the changes) and evaluating whether it's been worth it or not. You should also monitor things like conversions and bounce rate.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Setting up a remote business with their Google Business Account
Hi all, I have a client who operates a remote business and I need to get her Google business/ brand account set up. She doesn't want it listed under her home address (for obvious reasons) but that is where her business is based out of. Apart from getting a PO box and listing her business under that for Google, does anybody know of any other options or best practices? Thanks!
SEO Learn Center | | Zx30 -
Have Semantic Search and Hummingbird questions? Don't miss Tuesday's free Mozinar.
Hey Q&A friends, I know a lot of you have questions about semantic search and Google's Hummingbird, so for this Tuesday's free Mozinar (10/21), we're having the amazing Gianluca Fiorelli on to teach you and answer all your questions. You can register for free here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/468375870 We do record all these webinars, so if you can't make it, you'll be able to find it in our past webinars within 48 hours post-Mozinar. See you there! B0IrjznCMAMEDR7.png
SEO Learn Center | | EricaMcGillivray2 -
Can you have same product name and description on a local and national site at the same time without getting dinged by google?
My question is regarding a few sites we own which are all related. The local site (http://location.company.com) is a extension of the national main site (http://company.com.) We are in the process of launching these new sites as replacements to older sites we created years ago. My first question regarding SEO is it important to the search engines to have unique product content on both sites even though they promote the same products (with same pictures) and brands or can we keep the same product names and descriptions as I hope? I ask this because essentially they are the same site but with with the exception of the local extension..... We thought by re writing all the content on the main pages of both sites along with different; title tags, page title and meta descriptions that that would make the sites different enough to get away with this. Is that the case? Thank you in advance for your assistance, Jake
SEO Learn Center | | Closetstogo0 -
My Wordpress Organic Blog traffic disappeared and Google is indexing Viagra and Online Med titles for some articles. How to fix that?
Hello, I'm worried that all my organic traffic has disappeared according to Analytics from past friday and now Google is showing results from my title tags in the last days as you can see here: http://goo.gl/QFSgy Is there any additional resources I can read apart from Google Clean Your site Guidelines here https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/163634 or the Wordpress FAQ for hacked sites here? http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked Very much appreciated all of your help! Regards.
SEO Learn Center | | viventuraSEO0 -
Wikipedia Page
I need to start a wikipedia page for our business, any good how to articles or videos I should read prior to? Advice or anything I need to know before taking this on? Thank you!
SEO Learn Center | | cbeuoy0 -
Looking for a Free Wiki - Any Reco's?
We are looking for a free wiki tool to use as an operational and best practices wiki for our websites. This would be comparable to many company's Standard Operation Procedure Manual or Marketing Standards Manual. Is anyone using a Wiki Tool they would recommend? Thanks, SAM
SEO Learn Center | | SammyT0 -
Remove image URL from a google crawl
hello one of the warnings Im getting is that one of my urls has too many on page links here's the page: http://cheap-airport-taxis.com/airport-cab/?show=gallery but the url is being auto generated due to the wordpress plugin NextGen Gallery anyway I can exclude these from the site crawl. This page has no purpose, as the core path shows these images anyway. James
SEO Learn Center | | smashseo0 -
Seo book(s) recommend or advise me
Hi i would like to buy book about seo but i dont know which is good or not maybe you may recommend me some seo book special about google caffeine i found this to books on amazon, http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-Secrets-2011/dp/1452885443/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299373573&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/SEO-2011-Search-Optimization-Secrets/dp/1450727972/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299373627&sr=8-3 Thank you Kerem
SEO Learn Center | | pentimento0