Site Speed Counts! Slow sites beware!

Filed under: Google Adsense, seo by mike |

Is your web site fast enough?

Uh oh… this one kind of slipped in under the radar but get a load of this – GOOGLE announced on April 9th that they are now using site speed to help determine web search rankings!

Yes – Google is obsessed with speed and now it’s more important than ever that you are aware of how fast your pages load.

I’ll put the links to the source material below – but let’s take a look at what Google is telling us:

“Our internal studies show that visitors tend to spend less time on sites that respond slowly, and additional recent data shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs. For these reasons, we’re now taking site speed into account in our search rankings.”

That’s true. There is nothing worse than a web page that sucks away time as we wait for it to load.

“Site speed is just one of over 200 signals we use to determine search ranking, and because it’s a new signal, it doesn’t carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. In fact, less than 1% of all search queries on google.com are affected by the site speed signal. We launched this change a few weeks back after rigorous testing. If you haven’t seen much change to your site rankings, then this site speed change possibly did not impact your site.”

As they say – there are many other factors that determine the rank of a page – but now that we know site speed is one of them – make sure you are on a good web host and if you ever see your page load time is really bad – complain to the host or if you can do it yoruself – reboot your server! That’s what I do when I see my sites are slow. I’d rather lose a few minutes waiting for a server to reboot than let it go into zombie land!

Google goes on to provide some free tools to use to check site speed.

You’ll find all the good stuff linked at:

> Using Site Speed
> Adsense and Site Speed

Comments (29)

29 Comments »

What an unbelievable coincidence!

I, just now, clicked on an internet marketing blog that took forever to load. Once it did load, there were errors, and I couldn’t even scroll down the page. It kept trying to reload, and reload. What a pain in the a#!. I got off the site immediately (as soon as it would let me).

Then I came to this blog, and I see, “Site Speed Counts! Slow Sites Beware!”

What an unbelievable coincidence. I had to make a comment.

I have noticed people give Google a worse rap than they deserve. Google does what every single marketer, online and offline, should be doing. Providing value to their users.

Customers pay a marketers paychecks. The more the customer gets what they want, the bigger the marketers paychecks.

Most marketers already know this. So why are so many marketers not implementing it?

I think it comes down to greed. Greed will actually do a marketer more harm than good.

People don’t go to your website or blog to make you money. People go to your website or blog to benefit themselves.

The more you can offer to benefit those people, the more successful you will ultimately be.

Good luck.

Matthew Zinda

Comment by Make My Own Website — April 20, 2010 @ 12:41 pm
Great post, Mike! Yes, we will all have to take serious notice of site speed in the future. A slow loading page is my number one frustration on the net. So, it is good that there is some incentive for folks to speed things up.

Comment by Rika Susan Juicing Recipes — April 22, 2010 @ 1:14 am
Hey Mike

Timely as usual. As the above commenter stated, these rules sound draconian however Google does want to provide value for its searchers and website load time is just another factor that can contribute to site abandonment.

We all need to look at not only our servers but also the sizes of images and videos we put up. Just because it’s cool doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be done. If it adds to your marketing message then figuring a way to make it work versus annoying your web visitor is something you have to think about.

Would you say the ever increasing internet speeds can make up for this? It’s a fine balance for sure but we all should take a look at ways we can improve our users experience and page load speed is definitely one to watch.

Thanks for your insight,
Mark

Comment by Internet Marketing Specialist — April 22, 2010 @ 10:08 am
Load time is an important factor. Slow loading of a website may result into poor user experience.

Comment by internet marketing vancouver — April 22, 2010 @ 11:56 pm
I always wondered if this would come into play. Many sites I visit seem to have loading problems. Wish there was something we can do on this end to help when you don’t run your own server.

Comment by Tim — April 26, 2010 @ 6:05 pm
I am new reader of your site but one thing i realize one thing that the way you plot the matter in your post that is amazing i am appreciating that.
Keep it up.

Comment by mosquito killer — April 27, 2010 @ 9:12 pm
Loading time is essential for a site. Slow loading of the page is very annoying one because it consumes the time on loading a page. This will make the user not to visit the site anymore because of this poor experience.

Comment by sadler — April 29, 2010 @ 1:51 pm
Hi Mike,

Google has this one right because what’s the point of waiting a minute or longer for a site to load? It would have to be extra super special and even then the repeat visits would be torturous.

I have come across a few blogs like that and if I do wait for them to load the first time to see what they have to offer I usually don’t come back because of the long wait even if I like their content.

In one or two cases when I commented about the slow loading speed the blog owners actually did something about it and I’m happy to visit their blog without having to dread the long wait.

Comment by Get Blog Traffic — April 30, 2010 @ 12:03 am
i realize one thing that the way you plot the matter in your post that is amazing i am appreciating that.
Keep it up.

Comment by fence posts — May 2, 2010 @ 10:44 pm
Many sites I visit seem to have loading problems. Wish there was something we can do on this end to help when you don’t run your own server.

Comment by mouse trap — May 2, 2010 @ 10:45 pm
Thanks for sharing, I found this article, while googling for free downloads and ran across this website, useful comments and good points made.

-Michael Henrym

Comment by Michael Henry — May 5, 2010 @ 5:55 am
Great post, very informative. I think a lot of people will find this very useful.Keep post in coming future as well!!!

Comment by Flowers — May 6, 2010 @ 2:11 am
I just had this blog visited and I just don’t like waiting for it to load. I think Google had find a very good way to improve these blog sites or else they will be deleted. As for any individual searching, time is indeed important and if anyone would want to conserve the time spent, they’d want to have it the faster way rather than wait forever for a site to load.

Comment by Headphone Reviews — May 10, 2010 @ 10:20 am
thank you,I like it very much.
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The vcp-410 following topics are general guidelines for the content likely to be included on the Remote Access 640-802 exam. However, other related topics may also appear on any specific delivery of the exam. In order to better reflect the contents of the exam and for clarity purposes, the guidelines below may change at any time without notice.

Comment by 000 200 — May 11, 2010 @ 11:46 pm
Hey Mike, just when you think Google cant introduce anything else into the mix, out they come with something new again, thanks for this post Sally

Comment by Sally Neill — May 12, 2010 @ 4:46 am
Hey Mike,

I can see why this should be taken into consideration when it comes to page ranking.

Nobody likes waiting on anything anymore and when a site is slow you just go to the next site on the list anyway.

Great info Mike I must check my blog speed

Glyn

Comment by Glyn Lafferty — May 12, 2010 @ 12:50 pm
After looking over this blog post I took a look around the site. You have done a great job gathering all this information.

Comment by Rory Ramsden — May 13, 2010 @ 7:02 am
Thanks for the post. It will be so nice when all of the sites with the pop-ups, pop-unders, broadband-eating flash and all of the other scripts no longer plague the net. All of the hype and gimmicks might actually leave room for real content and real information. What a novel idea, huh? LOL

Cathy

Comment by Cathy — May 14, 2010 @ 5:13 pm
Is there any niche worth while chasing OTHER than peddling internet marketing courses?

Comment by Steve Hilliar — May 17, 2010 @ 1:42 am
Google has been threatening to do this for a long time – in fact for over 2 years and in a world where broadband speeds are improving its probably fair. We all demand instant gratification on the internet and things that are slow are often disregarded and click away from.

I would only add a small point though – I doubt whether Google will put too much emphasis on the site load time within its ranking formula

Comment by Internet Marketing Consultant UK — May 18, 2010 @ 6:07 am
This is very important in running a successful website. Mike you hit the nail on the head with this one. As I know and do you as well, the average attention span of your visitor is 2-3 seconds. If we don’t catch their attention (ie our sites loading way to slow), we risk loosing a potential visitor.

Your Marketing Comrade,

Johnathan Hayes

Comment by Johnathan Hayes — May 31, 2010 @ 9:09 pm
Yes load time speed matters…that’s what she said!
My JV partner that is!

We did a test before a big launch last Friday in a regular weekly Warriors chat room that had a lot of people active in the room hit the site when we posted a link to it and WOW was we surprised to see loads times of up to 54 seconds..not at all acceptable.

Imagine all the money that could be lost from people leaving within seconds of the site not loading correctly…

So we had to set the domain up on a more reliable managed server to make sure we can take on such a big load, but as most people know this is still no guarantee it will not slow down or even crash as a result of massive amounts of traffic hitting your site all at once!

The IM Freak!!!
Sam England

Comment by Sam England — June 1, 2010 @ 10:03 pm
I knew that one day Google would find another way to make things harder to us. Can you imagine all the work people will have to do on their websites to make it fast. I mean, change CSS styles, Image sizes, website content, etc. Anyway, it is the giant applying its rules. Great Post and thank you for sharing.

Comment by Your Internet Marketing Secrets — June 9, 2010 @ 11:29 am
Very informative article. Next time, I will take note of the site speed as well. I thought before that slow loading of one’s page is just normal for a busy site. Thanks for explaining this to us. Keep it up!

Comment by mondex1 — June 15, 2010 @ 3:26 pm
Slow loading of a website is a pain in the as…i usually click them away befor they are finished loading… speed matters.

Comment by LeedsUnited — June 17, 2010 @ 4:37 am
very nice information, would come again and love it

Comment by cheap nike air max 90 — June 20, 2010 @ 8:06 pm
I am used to Drupal cms,it’s loading time and the submission time and the data retrieval are all fast enough for my website,i suggest to go for drupal than any other things..

Comment by Drupal Web Developers — July 26, 2010 @ 7:21 am
si la interfaz nueva es muy bacana..
pero me colgo cuando abri un pdf online…
no se si por el acrobat reader

Comment by Muhabbet — July 31, 2010 @ 3:23 am
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Comment by SEO Hampshire — August 31, 2010 @ 4:57 am