Website load-time DOES matter (SEO)

11 years ago

Good job on running a test. Of course it matters.

Faster page load =

1) Better user experience
2) Less bandwidth costs for Google.

They've been promoting this idea for years now.

Thanks

Signature

Free Special Report on Mindset - Level Up with Positive Thinking

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8259567].message }}

nicktyler

11 years ago

Stability also helps. It needs to be fast every time it loads.

Thanks

Signature

1000's of IT jobs in the UK online now at Dice

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8259579].message }}

paulgl

11 years ago

Wikipedia gets a 66/100.
en.wikipedia.org gets an 88/100.
craigslist.org gets a 35/100.
ESPN, 86, ebay 84, yahoo answers 90.

My best adsense site, 89. Hand coded, like all my sites.
Second best adsense site is 90.

The "bigger" (boatloads of data, scripts, etc.) a site is,
like ESPN, the more stuff to load, redirects, etc.

Quite a meaningless tool, unless you sift each and every page on a site
through it. ESPN baseball scores gets 91.

Does it really matter? In the big picture, not really. There is so much more
that matters before this kicks in.

If people are really worried, they should ditch bloated WP.

Paul

[ 3 ] Thanks
1 reply

Signature

If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8259777].message }}

smodha

11 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Wikipedia gets a 66/100.
en.wikipedia.org gets an 88/100.
craigslist.org gets a 35/100.
ESPN, 86, ebay 84, yahoo answers 90.

My best adsense site, 89. Hand coded, like all my sites.
Second best adsense site is 90.

The "bigger" (boatloads of data, scripts, etc.) a site is,
like ESPN, the more stuff to load, redirects, etc.

Quite a meaningless tool, unless you sift each and every page on a site
through it. ESPN baseball scores gets 91.

Does it really matter? In the big picture, not really. There is so much more
that matters before this kicks in.

If people are really worried, they should ditch bloated WP.

Paul

When you have attained high PR most Google metrics go out of the window. I agree that for newer, smaller sites page load time is ranking factor.

Wiki is a great example of everything that Google advises you not to do in SEO and yet it's a super authority.

Load speed isn't just about SEO - it also boils down to loss of conversions. How many times have you clicked "back" when a page doesn't load?

Thanks

Signature

I Sell What People Want. The Money Is A Bonus..

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454885].message }}

kulwantnagi

11 years ago

Read this article.. Here I have covered tips to configure it.

http://www.bloggingcage.com/what-is-google-pagespeed-service-and-how-to-use-it

Thanks

Signature

Why Should You Start Building Email List Today?
Why I Switched From Aweber to ConvertKit + 1 Month FREE Trial

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8260074].message }}

georgefuller

11 years ago

actually page load play a major role on user experience and spider crawling, in user experience. people will definitely choose the site which loads faster and hassle free. in terms of spider, it will prioritize the website which loads faster because crawlers can roam around in few times than the heavy website.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8260284].message }}

yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Wordpress defiantly has nothing to do with slow pages, it's all the junk that people add to their pages that makes them slow.

I just ran a Insight speed test on one of my WP sites Index page (73 score) that has about 20 large images & no where near optimized for speed (compressed HTML, compressed images, etc...), heck even those 20 large images are high resolution .png images, I could cut the image file sizes in half If I optimized them in Photoshop as .jpg images.

One thing I've always done is make my pages simple. The reason I keep my pages simple looking is for funneling traffic to my call-to-actions, If you blast a page with a bunch of javascript, irrelevant theme images, all that does is distract the traffic from whatever you goal is for that page.

BTW, I use Hostgator which works great (always has).

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8260799].message }}

paulgl

11 years ago

warriorforum gets 76-77.

Paul

Thanks

Signature

If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8260807].message }}

DanielPedersen

11 years ago

The wordpress theme "responsive" which is free also has a pretty fast loadtime, i have sites where i have done nothing on to improve my speed, they all have 91+. You should try that out.

Thanks

Signature

Daniel

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8261402].message }}

mitz

11 years ago

I have a site that gets 91-93 and I am getting a poor rating in Adsense saying the health of my site is not good???

they say they have analysed my pages and say they are poor health but when I click the link the scores are fine.. Do they want me to make it perfect?

Thanks
1 reply

Signature

Have a great day!
Making money online by building one Wordpress Website at a time.

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8274199].message }}

yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by mitz

I have a site that gets 91-93 and I am getting a poor rating in Adsense saying the health of my site is not good???

they say they have analysed my pages and say they are poor health but when I click the link the scores are fine.. Do they want me to make it perfect?

Those Adsense messages have to be automated canned responses/info, I get the same messages saying health is fine one day & the next day it's like all he$$ broke loose, when I know for a fact nothing is wrong with my sites, I rarely change anything on my main site.

I ignore the messages, it's impossible to do anything when the health status keeps changing but the site isn't changing.

I went into my Adsense Admin last night & blocked something like 70% of the Ads that have shown on my sites, I'm not sure what Google is up to but they're delivering a $hit load of irrelevant Ads. I'm about to tell them to stick it up their %$#!

I'm still making decent money but I can tell by CTR which days crap Ads are being shown.

I'm tempted to turn one of my Adsense sites into a paid subscription site & see how that works.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8274292].message }}

Lokahi

11 years ago

Google encourages webmasters to improve their site in any way that benefits users. And, faster loading pages would fall into that category, so it makes sense that faster loading pages would be counted in your favor for SEO and search engine ranking purposes.

Thanks

Signature

Windows10Geek.com

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8275327].message }}

seoace

11 years ago

For a guide on website speed optimization, check out: The Ultimate Non-Technical Guide To A Lightning Fast Website

[ 3 ] Thanks

Signature

Who else needs a SEO Client Dashboard for their SEO services ?
Let your clients monitor their SEO campaigns (Rankings, Backlinks and Work Done)

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8276491].message }}

Kevin Maguire

11 years ago

See, I remembered this thread and knew one day I would come back and post to it.

I only have one site of my own. Its an affiliate site. And I have been sitting on the cusp of breaking into some big keywords. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't break top 3. No matter how many links I threw at it.

And then I remembered. Page Speed.

I'd been adding so much new content lately, and had totally ignored it. Tonnes of oversized images and videos, I had been posting.

My Google Insights Page Speed test score was
40 Desktop
35 Mobile

So, I've got in there with a hammer. And beat the hell out of optimizing everything into peanut size. My new scores are
95 Desktop
90 Mobile

Is super speed the missing key to me going OTT in SERP's? I hope so.

Edit:Stupid me. Of course its done at a page level. But most I've looked at so far are 93 and above. The homepage is 95 and has the most content/images etc..

I stripped out any clunky unneeded plugins.
I reduced the size/scale of every image and banner image I had on each page by a min 60%.
I kept images to 3 max per post all under 400x400.
I added Leverage Cache to my htaccess (I thought I had that by default)
I moved js blocking scripts to the footer, by adding a code I found on wordpress.org. Youjust put it in the footer.

Heres the code:

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">

// Add a script element as a child of the body
function downloadJSAtOnload() {
var element = document.createElement("script");
element.src = "deferredfunctions.js";
document.body.appendChild(element);
}

// Check for browser support of event handling capability
if (window.addEventListener)
window.addEventListener("load", downloadJSAtOnload, false);
else if (window.attachEvent)
window.attachEvent("onload", downloadJSAtOnload);
else window.onload = downloadJSAtOnload;

</script>

Thanks
2 replies

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453458].message }}

yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire

See, I remembered this thread and knew one day I would come back and post to it.

I only have one site of my own. Its an affiliate site. And I have been sitting on the cusp of breaking into some big keywords. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't break top 3. No matter how many links I threw at it.

And then I remembered. Page Speed.

I'd been adding so much new content lately, and had totally ignored it. Tonnes of oversized images and videos, I had been posting.

My Google Insights Page Speed test score was
40 Desktop
35 Mobile

So, I've got in there with a hammer. And beat the hell out of optimizing everything into peanut size. My new scores are
95 Desktop
90 Mobile

Is super speed the missing key to me going OTT in SERP's? I hope so.

I had a new keyword last week that was stubborn, trying to rank a single page. I built my internal links, let it sit, waited a few days..., started dropping in the SERPs. I blasted it with a bunch of decent external links on other domains I own, still nothing, waited..., I went back to my external links & changed from keyword anchor-text to index page URL as anchor-text (backlinks pointing at internal page), BAM! Hit #1 for my target keyword over night & position #4 for a similar keyword.

Page speed sucks on all the pages involved, lol.

[ 1 ] Thanks
2 replies

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453490].message }}

dreamtoreality

11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

I had a new keyword last week that was stubborn, trying to rank a single page. I built my internal links, let it sit, waited a few days..., started dropping in the SERPs. I blasted it with a bunch of decent external links on other domains I own, still nothing, waited..., I went back to my external links & changed from keyword anchor-text to index page URL as anchor-text (backlinks pointing at internal page), BAM! Hit #1 for my target keyword over night & position #4 for a similar keyword.

Page speed sucks on all the pages involved, lol.

That's pretty interesting, Yukon. Have you got any more data to back this up -i.e. have you done this before and noticed a difference? We all know that cause and effect is very hard to determine when it comes to ranking.

Thanks
1 reply

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453511].message }}

yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by dreamtoreality

That's pretty interesting, Yukon. Have you got any more data to back this up -i.e. have you done this before and noticed a difference? We all know that cause and effect is very hard to determine when it comes to ranking.

That's the only time I've tried that, swapping out external link anchor-text for links pointing at the same page/URL.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453689].message }}

Kevin Maguire

11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

I had a new keyword last week that was stubborn, trying to rank a single page. I built my internal links, let it sit, waited a few days..., started dropping in the SERPs. I blasted it with a bunch of decent external links on other domains I own, still nothing, waited..., I went back to my external links & changed from keyword anchor-text to index page URL as anchor-text (backlinks pointing at internal page), BAM! Hit #1 for my target keyword over night & position #4 for a similar keyword.

Page speed sucks on all the pages involved, lol.

See,
I know my links are rock solid.
I know my content is rock solid.
I know my internal linking is rock solid.
The only thing that I found slow. Was the page speed.
Anyway, its not like I'm saying its going to work. I'm saying I hope it will.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453549].message }}

Powder_Skier

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire

See, I remembered this thread and knew one day I would come back and post to it.

I only have one site of my own. Its an affiliate site. And I have been sitting on the cusp of breaking into some big keywords. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't break top 3. No matter how many links I threw at it.

And then I remembered. Page Speed.

I'd been adding so much new content lately, and had totally ignored it. Tonnes of oversized images and videos, I had been posting.

My Google Insights Page Speed test score was
40 Desktop
35 Mobile

So, I've got in there with a hammer. And beat the hell out of optimizing everything into peanut size. My new scores are
95 Desktop
90 Mobile

Is super speed the missing key to me going OTT in SERP's? I hope so.

Edit:Stupid me. Of course its done at a page level. But most I've looked at so far are 93 and above. The homepage is 95 and has the most content/images etc..

I stripped out any clunky unneeded plugins.
I reduced the size/scale of every image and banner image I had on each page by a min 60%.
I kept images to 3 max per post all under 400x400.
I added Leverage Cache to my htaccess (I thought I had that by default)
I moved js blocking scripts to the footer, by adding a code I found on wordpress.org. Youjust put it in the footer.

Heres the code:

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">

// Add a script element as a child of the body
function downloadJSAtOnload() {
var element = document.createElement("script");
element.src = "deferredfunctions.js";
document.body.appendChild(element);
}

// Check for browser support of event handling capability
if (window.addEventListener)
window.addEventListener("load", downloadJSAtOnload, false);
else if (window.attachEvent)
window.attachEvent("onload", downloadJSAtOnload);
else window.onload = downloadJSAtOnload;

</script>

I used the script you posted and shaved .8 seconds off my page load time - but - a popup I had on my home page won't load now. I guess it's somewhat of a trade off. Still, it's enough of a page load savings to be noticable so I'll keep using the script.

Thanks again!

Thanks

Signature

Don't Be A Hackers Victim - Secure Your Wordpress Website Now!
Not sure the best path to take? Which security plugins are best that won't break your site? Confused about configuring the plugins properly? Don't want to DIY? I'll secure it for you @ a reasonable rate, including backups. Click Here!

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9080505].message }}

webapex

11 years ago

I recall one study reported in a seminar, on a site with 5 second load time getting a 20% bounce rate, reducing load time to 1/2 second resulted in a 5% bounce rate, so ranking could be in part a product of measured bounce rates which would provide more data points than spider load time checks.

Google's own internal design guidelines call for .5 second load times.

Thanks
1 reply

Signature

â€œAn expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow fieldâ€ Niels Bohr

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453560].message }}

Kevin Maguire

11 years ago

Originally Posted by webapex

I recall one study reported in a seminar, on a site with 5 second load time getting a 20% bounce rate, reducing load time to 1/2 second resulted in a 5% bounce rate, so ranking could be in part a product of measured bounce rates which would provide more data points than spider load time checks.

Google's own internal design guidelines call for .5 second load times.

Well, I guess my situation will be another good case study then.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453583].message }}

yukon

Banned 11 years ago

I should build a test page & load it full of crappy javascript that takes forever to load, see If I can rank the page, lol.

Thanks
1 reply

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453694].message }}

Kevin Maguire 11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

I should build a test page & load it full of crappy javascript that takes forever to load, see If I can rank the page, lol.

I'll slap you up side the head foo.

Haha..dont mess with me. I'll put my fingers in your eyes. Ninjeninery style..peow..
- Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453832].message }}

PeepingDakota

11 years ago

page speed is always important. it improves the overall site experience of your visitors and search engines will love that. matt cutt's said it on his blog a few years ago.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8453775].message }}

Vernet

11 years ago

Google always wants positive search experience for everyone, and faster load time means better search experience..

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454033].message }}

PBScott

11 years ago

I moved my pagespeed from 76/100 up to 99/100 a couple of years ago, my load time improved considerable, as did my closing ratio, and my bounce rate went down. Unfortunately though my search engine visitors went to a third of what they were at before, so I guess I went a bit overboard.

I believe a week is far too short a time to run a test like this, due to the "Freshness" of all the updated webpages, you might have gotten a short term boost.

Considering many of the changes I placed on my website included hosting files on multiple domains, as well as dynamic loading of some content after the "onload" I am sure this is what caused my decrease in visitors, since it left less for Google to read on that domain, and also they do not read after an onload event as far as I know, or value the contents of an offsite iframe.

Some things done to speed up your website may cause you to get less visitors.

Thanks

Signature

If you don't look at this => Really Funny Shirts <= you missed something in life

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454301].message }}

leajbsg1

Banned 11 years ago

[DELETED]

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454335].message }}

johnsmith789 11 years ago

Fast website loading time, less bounce rate. People and Google love those website which load fast.
- Thanks
- 1 reply
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454352].message }}
- seophalanx 11 years ago
  
  Yes, page loading time matters a lot in SEO. A fast-loading, clean design will do wonders for your SEO rankings and for user experience, increasing the chance that people visiting your site will follow your desired call to action. If page loading time is slower, then visitor will not stay long in the website.
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  Organic SEO Services India
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454531].message }}

Enuke

11 years ago

yes definitely page speed matters, but now you have given me a nice idea regards this because i was going wrong.I am using the images banners and some more images in my site so my site downloading time not much more 62 , then i thought it may be right but when i looking here that a website score 91 94 really very much . Thank you so much for meaningful stuff.

Thanks
1 reply

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454591].message }}

kid3378 11 years ago

For Google Page Speed Insights my website got a score of

48/100 for mobile and 57/100 for desktop.

I bought the theme and it has a package of plugins within the theme causing page load speed become more slow. What could I possibly do to increase the load-time of my website if i'm no javascript/css expert?

Comparing to your statistics, my stats are totally low.
I'm just wondering if my stats bad, average or better.

Thanks for any follow-up advice.
- Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454689].message }}

ksummers

11 years ago

A main problem that kept cropping up in page speed testers was that I had no Expires headers set for my content types.

E.g this sort of thing in .htaccess file

ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"

Just another tool in the page speed armory.
I used this tutorial

http://gtmetrix.com/add-expires-headers.html

[ 1 ] Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8454826].message }}

bobmarketer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by online only

I have never been a fan of onpage SEO nor improving my site speed, but since I got really pissed about hostgator few weeks ago I decided to improve one of my site loading time to see if I can get some real results.

To be honest, at first I was quite skeptical about it...Thought it was too much hyped up and don't give much SEO benefit, but I was wrong...

So, first of all, those were the results before I increased my site loading speed:

Pingdom result: 90/100
Google insight speed result: 73/100

After that I checked my competitors and they all had 80-95/100 loading time according to Google speed test tool.

This is what I did:

1) Moved my site from hostgator to site5 (site5 is not the best of all, but I have heard some good stuff about it. However, it's still too early to judge it)

2) Removed all unnecessary plugins and themes that I no longer used.

3) Deleted spam comments and reduced the amount of blog post revisions.

4) Installed WP super cache plugin and set it up.

5) Used Smush.it WP plugin that compressed all my images.

6) Changed my theme to extremely simple and basic one -
Two Column WordPress Theme - Fast Loading and Feature Rich Although it's a bit outdated, it runs extremely smooth and fast.

Once all was done, I checked results:

Pingdom: 93/100 - not much improvement, but I couldn't care less since it's a third party tool
Google insight: 87/100 - WOW.

And what's even better, I waited 5-7 days and my site moved from 8th to 3rd which is pretty sick by just tweaking the page speed.

FYI, the previous theme had quite similar onpage SEO & structure. The overall page outlook didn't change much at all.

So my conclusion for this mini "case-study" is that page speed DOES matter. Many people (like me) use to overlook at it, but now I think that improving your site speed should be in your top10 SEO activities.

That's perfect testing. Page speed really play a major role in higher ranking as Google give value to better user experience.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9081068].message }}

ventureprofits

10 years ago

I'd say it matters when you and your competitors are on the same SEO level. I have websites around 80 and still kill competitor sites that have faster speed.

Thanks

Signature

Want ASM 2014? contact me

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9081438].message }}

Akileshochre

10 years ago

Site speed makes good search rankings and better user experience . It is help full for SEO also .....

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9081732].message }}

Daones

10 years ago

I used GTmetrix on all my sites, there are a lot of tweaks you can make to your site to speed it up and increase your score. Even a small task can improve your speed by 10%. It not only will help slightly with SEO but make a better user experience.

Thanks

Signature

Diverse Link Building Package Get Improved Rankings That Stick - 20% Cheaper Prices to WF Members

Purchase High PR Contextual Links - Boost Your Rankings Today!

Manual Web2.0 Creation + Unique Content And Drip Feed Links

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9082203].message }}

vishwa

10 years ago

Yes! Certainly Its make an impact on your site as well as for SEO. A users don't stay on the site which takes too much or a long time to load.

Thanks
1 reply

Signature

Techbizmasters.com- Blogging, Technology, and Digital Marketing

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9082591].message }}

paulgl 10 years ago

Originally Posted by vishwa

Yes! Certainly Its make an impact on your site as well as for SEO. A users don't stay on the site which takes too much or a long time to load.

That may be for some joe shmo site that nobody cares about...but amazon.com,
I'm sure the folks are a waitin' and not a carin'

What's funny, I just read some nonsense answer above about how
it makes google pay for less bandwidth......what planet did that
reply come from?

Anyway, as I always say, it's the bottom line that matters

If Mr. Online Only is having better success, congrats to him! It's all about
what works for you.

Paul
- Thanks
Signature

If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9083619].message }}

online only

10 years ago

Seems like this thread is being bumped up.
Anyhow, I just dumped all shared hosting and went to VPS. WP has never been so fast

Thanks
1 reply

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9082623].message }}

Powder_Skier 10 years ago

Originally Posted by online only

Seems like this thread is being bumped up.
Anyhow, I just dumped all shared hosting and went to VPS. WP has never been so fast

If you were to guess a percent that representerd your increase in site loading speed, what would you say the percent increase would be?

Also wondering how many sites you have on your VPS?

Regards,
Maury
- Thanks
Signature
Don't Be A Hackers Victim - Secure Your Wordpress Website Now!
Not sure the best path to take? Which security plugins are best that won't break your site? Confused about configuring the plugins properly? Don't want to DIY? I'll secure it for you @ a reasonable rate, including backups. Click Here!
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9085590].message }}

dannycheng

10 years ago

Originally Posted by online only

I have never been a fan of onpage SEO nor improving my site speed, but since I got really pissed about hostgator few weeks ago I decided to improve one of my site loading time to see if I can get some real results.

To be honest, at first I was quite skeptical about it...Thought it was too much hyped up and don't give much SEO benefit, but I was wrong...

So, first of all, those were the results before I increased my site loading speed:

Pingdom result: 90/100
Google insight speed result: 73/100

After that I checked my competitors and they all had 80-95/100 loading time according to Google speed test tool.

Nice! Thanks for sharing the results. Although everyone knows that site loading speed counts, it's great to see a case study at any rate.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9085721].message }}

Website load-time DOES matter (SEO)

Trending Topics

How did you turn it all around?

Any thoughts on golf's latest phenom...Scottie Scheffler??

What's the Best IM-Related Skill to Learn Today That Can Help in the Future?

Some interesting stats about brand comms

Infographic: How B2B marketers on LinkedIn can maximise their efforts for better audience reach