Site Speed, is it worth it from a SEO point?
-
Hi,
I understand a site which loads quickly is greater for the user but how does site speed affect rankings?
I mean does Google log the speed pages load, the faster it loads the better the signal? So say I have a page which loads in 1.5sec would Google 'Rate' the site better if it loaded in say 0.8sec?
Thanks.
-
One easy way that I've found to help with pagespeed is with cloudflare's free subscription. It does a lot to speed up your site, such as auto minifying, css, html and javascript. It also caches your pages and greatly reduces server response times. It also does some other stuff and offers security features which is another benefit.
-
One more here and just because I wanted to clarify this further on what Benjamin mentioned. Yes, site speed is important for SEO and we can go through all the reasons. The real reason you want good site speed is that you make more money as your users are happier. People who come to your site are more likely to convert the faster your site is, regardless of if they came from Google, Bing, Organic, Paid, direct, etc etc.
Amazon has actually calculated this. They estimate that a page load slowdown of 1 seconds would cost Amazon 1.6 billion in sales each year.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1825005/how-one-second-could-cost-amazon-16-billion-sales
This type of research has been done at many other companies, including Google. If you are trying to measure the impact of site speed, don't look just at ranking, look at conversion. There is where the real money is.
-
Not only is is worth it from a search engine point of view but also for your visitors, they want the site to load fast or else they might leave. Check out google speed test https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ to see what you can do to make your website faster.
-
Yes, Google has been fairly overt when it comes to application performance. Just to give you a little insight into how important Google thinks speed is, they cut any internal application if it's even slightly sluggish. And further, wouldn't you think it's significant when they display that they've delivered nine billion results in .0000023454355 seconds?
There are a lot of easy, quick, wins you can have in under five minutes. Here's a couple to start you off.
GZip Compression:
Odds are you're using one of these server flavors. This is a very quick way to increase speed. Just be very careful when editing/updating .htaccess. The slightest bit of white space or a syntax error will take the site down. Your host may even be able to do this for you in some fashion, but a lot of them shy away from even supporting .htaccess. So once you start down that road, it's lonely a one - save for some forums.
Reduce Image File Size:
There are tons of ways to reduce image file size without a lot of hassle. Some will losslessly compress (no reduction in image quality) other forms are 'lossy'.
Google Page Speed Tool (Lossless - In Chrome Dev Console ctrl+shift+j, yo)
There are a ton of other ways, but these are some easy ways to get a faster page.
-
Hi,
I have had great results from speeding up pages of my site and I also spending quite a lot of time, money and effort keeping my pages as fast as possible. If you use tools like GTmetrix and google provides tools in GWMT you will see not only a decrease in pageload time but a boost in organic rankings and an overall better user experience. I agree with Prestashop 100%.
-
In short, yes. I cannot remember which article or which video I saw it in, but one of the guys from google was interviewed and someone said the term "search engine" to him. He replied that Google likes to think of themselves as an "experience engine". That being said, they strive to provide the sites that promote the best user experience. A slow site does not provide that. I would be willing to bet, 10 times out of 10, two sites that were equal in every other aspect, the faster one would rank higher.
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
-
How to carry across/capture linkjuice during an SEO site migration
Hi there - I am planning out an SEO migration but this thought just occured to me: If the links into a site's previous URL went to the non-canonical version of the domain name - e.g. to: https://theguardian.com/uk and not the correct version of that URL, which is: https://www.theguardian.com/uk Then, if I do a redirect simply from the correct canonical version of the domain:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
https://www.theguardian.com/uk - rather than the versions of the domain that are being pointed to by backlinks - e.g. https://theguardian.com/uk - then the migration will not be carrying across all the linkjuice from the previous site. So how would you suggest dealing with this issue?0 -
Google Indexed Site A's Content On Site B, Site C etc
Hi All, I have an issue where the content (pages and images) of Site A (www.ericreynolds.photography) are showing up in Google under different domains Site B (www.fastphonerepair.com), Site C (www.quarryhillvet.com), Site D (www.spacasey.com). I believe this happened because I installed an SSL cert on Site A but didn't have the default SSL domain set on the server. You were able to access Site B and any page from Site A and it would pull up properly. I have since fixed that SSL issue and am now doing a 301 redirect from Sites B, C and D to Site A for anything https since Sites B, C, D are not using an SSL cert. My question is, how can I trigger google to re-index all of the sites to remove the wrong listings in the index. I have a screen shot attached so you can see the issue clearer. I have resubmitted my site map but I'm not seeing much of a change in the index for my site. Any help on what I could do would be great. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cwscontent
Eric TeVM49b.png qPtXvME.png1 -
Webjaguar SEO shortcomings
Hey All. I have a client whose ecommerce site is build in Webjaguar. Does anyone have experience with this platform. It appears to be loaded with technical SEO challenges (duplicate content, weird URLs, etc). Interestingly, when I Google "webjaguar SEO challenges" and things like that....nothing comes up. Suspicious, methinks. I appreciate any thoughts from SEO folks. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JBMediaGroup0 -
SSL for SEO?
To obtain an SEO benefit from an SSL is there any particular type or brand which is recommended or has a track history? It seems you can pay anything between $20 and $???? (For that matter whatever you want to pay!). Any experience gratefully accepted! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Would changing the file name of an image (not the alt attribute) have an effect of on seo / ranking of that image and thus the site?
Would changing the file name of image, not the alt attribute nor the image itself (so it would be exactly the same but just a name change) have any effect on : a) A sites seo ranking b) the individual images seo ranking (although i guess if b) would be true it would have an effect on a) although potentially small.) This is the sort of change i would be thinking of making : ![Red ford truck](2554.jpg) changed to ![Red ford truck](6842.jpg)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam-P0 -
SEO site Review
Does anyone have suggestions on places that provide in depth site / analytics reviews for SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gordian0 -
What is value in a back-link from article with multiple links pointing to various other sites?
In a standard article with 400-500 words my site got a back-link. However, within the article there are 4 other links pointing to other external content as well (so total 5 links within articles all pointing to external sites, and 1 of the links is to my site). All links are to relevant external content that is. Question: wouldn't it be much more valuable for my site if only my site got a back-link from the article, as less link juice is now passed to my site, since there are 4 other links pointing to various sites from this same article? Or, is the case that given the other links are pointing to quality material it actually makes the link to my site look more credible and at the end of the day have more value. Conclusion: is it that on one hand less links in same article is better from a link juice perspective, however, from a credibility perspective it looks more convincing there are other links pointing to quality content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
Do I have to tell WBT site moved to a subdirectory on another internal site?
I am moving content from one site to another and redirecting the DNS from www.oldsite.com to www.newsite.com/old-site. I have put the 301 in place but I wanted to make sure I have to also tell Webmaster Tools to change the old site to the new domain? We still want the old domain name to answer and redirect to www.newsite.com/old-site. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GeorgeLaRochelle0