Google’s Webmaster Central blog has advised that site speed will now be taken into consideration for Google’s algorithm and will affect the way a website ranks. This should give a great long term benefit to web searches, increasing speed and user friendliness.
Website ranking will only become affected if the site load time is very slow. As normal, Google applies their own set of rules to how quickly a site loads before it starts to become an issue. There are a number of tools that can help you discover what is slowing down your website and causing issues.
Various different aspects of a website can cause it to slow down. Use of large images or video will affect the page load time. And if you are getting fed up with how long it takes before your site is completely loaded then the chance are your customers are as well. This will affect your site’s usability and result in a lower ranking which could mean less business.
Some tools available to help you keep an up to date track are shown below:
- YSlow: This plugin, used within Firefox, provides tips and guides on how to fix issues that might be occurring within your websites pages. It gives advice on using CSS Sprites, re-sizing images and reducing HTTP requests etc.
- Firebug Net tab: The Net tab for Firebug provides a good insight into what is taking the most time when loading the site. It also shows which part of the request the browser is waiting for. This should give an indication if it’s waiting for a script (php, asp etc) to load or if it’s just a slow connection.
- Google Page Speed: This tool is Google’s version for taking tests and is mainly advised for personal use.
Although it has been said that Google are not going to be using site load time as a huge factor within SEO, on-page and off-page SEO is still the main priority. Over the next month, Ikroh will be running further tests around this and will give you an update on our findings.
