Check the page load speed of google. Google PageSpeed ​​Insights has been overhauled, what's going to change? Reflections and predictions

As a website owner, you know that it has to be fast. And you have already read various articles on how to speed up your site, perhaps you have already implemented something. Then it becomes interesting how quickly the site loads. This is where you go to Google PageSpeed ​​Insights as the most popular tool, get an assessment and a list of recommendations from Google. And this is where most of us get lost:

• Is PageSpeed ​​Insights important for SEO?
• Why is my site not rated at the maximum?
• What do all these recommendations mean?

Previously, you turned on caching on your site and expected the PageSpeed ​​score to be nearly perfect, but now you wonder why this plugin didn't fix all the speed issues? Maybe he's not very good? The short answer is that:

Google PageSpeed ​​is irrelevant.

Yes, it does ... but why doesn't it matter?

Page speed vs PageSpeed ​​Insights

Speed ​​(website load time) matters and is an important metric in SEO and also affects user experience. When a Googlebot indexes a site, it does not see the PageSpeed ​​indicator, but only knows the speed itself. Did you know that Google PageSpeed ​​Insights does not measure your site's speed? Yes, read this again:

Google PageSpeed ​​Insights does not measure website speed.

Hello dear readers of the blog site! Today's post will be devoted to the wonderful Google Page Speed ​​tool, which allows you to test any page to explore the possibilities of speeding up its loading ().

It's no secret that search engines, especially Google, have been paying serious attention to this aspect lately, so fast websites get a certain advantage in ranking and higher positions in search results.

Google Page Speed ​​Insights not only detects and indicates all the reasons why the page does not load quickly enough, but also offers specific ways to eliminate them, and some of the problems found can be easily eliminated by the service itself in automatic mode.

What kind of optimization tools does Google offer to speed up websites?

In principle, for each of my projects, I devote a lot of time to page optimization activities that contribute to their fast loading. The only thing that really didn’t get to them was the blog site, which is essentially a visual aid for novice webmasters who are not devoid of healthy ambitions and charged to achieve their goals.

But, since I am a perfectionist by nature, I could not admit that an information web resource, carrying, so to speak, knowledge to the masses, would be in some aspect among the laggards. Therefore, it was decided to make every effort to optimize it, including the recommendations of Paige Speed.

Therefore, I immediately pass on to the description of this tool so that you can evaluate its functionality and apply it in practice for the benefit of your web resources.

Previously, Page Speed ​​Insights could be used as browser extensions and download links were present on a dedicated Google page. Moreover, in order to use it in Mazil, it was first necessary, where Page Speed ​​was present as its addition:

Now it is no longer possible to use extensions for browsers from Google, although the same plugins, but in a slightly different interpretation, are available on the official web pages of Chrome and Mazila (s). In addition, there is a completely functional Google online service of the same name with exactly the same functionality and no less capabilities. If you go to the Developers section, you will see a link to the Page Speed ​​tool there:

By the way, on the same page PageSpeed ​​Tools All Google site acceleration suggestions are located. It seems that the developers of the "empire of good" have taken seriously the optimization and acceleration of the entire Internet space, since in Developers you will find a link to the Optimization Library ( Integrate the PageSpeed ​​Optimization Library) open source.

Availability of open source software for this project, based on the module " mod_pagespeed", Which is installed on Apache servers (of which, by the way, the overwhelming majority), means that anyone can improve or update it.

That is, in this way it is quite possible, at the expense of the Internet community, to create an acceleration tool close to perfect. How all this will look in practice, time will tell. Naturally, in order to make a full-fledged contribution and achieve success in this good cause, you need to be a sufficiently qualified programmer.

If you take a look at the top screenshot (the information is surrounded by a green frame), you will see there a link to install the latest version of the ready-made module. It may well be interesting for owners who can install it on their servers, providing automatic acceleration of the sites located there.

Moreover, there are two modifications of the Page Speed ​​module: directly for Apache servers and for the Apache + Nginx bundle, where the second plays the role of a proxy server:

By the way, the option of sharing Apache and Ngnix in modern conditions is most in demand and is used by most advanced hosters (including, for example, Sprinthost), since it provides efficient use of resources. So, if you are interested in this method of automatically speeding up sites, you can put your hand to it yourself or strain your hoster.

Google "s PageSpeed ​​recommends (ways to increase the speed of loading site pages)

Above, we considered the possibility, so to speak, of a global increase in the speed of loading websites, which requires specific knowledge (it is likely that this information will be useful to someone, at least in the future).

But for the main part of readers, that is, simple webmasters, the option that is understandable and accessible "here and now" is more relevant. The PageSpeed ​​Insights service fully complies with such conditions, which we will talk about in more detail. To analyze a specific page of the site, enter its URL () on this page:

After analysis, you will see Google's assessment, both in terms of mobile devices and PCs, which is especially valuable. In this example, for the home page of this blog, 76 out of 100 credit for mobile is an average score that can be significantly improved by following the guidelines below.

Moreover, to optimize each resource that slows down page loading, links are given to the relevant sections (in order to get them, click the link "How to fix?"), where you will find descriptions of the necessary corrective actions.

But there is an important point to make here. Necessary analyze pages of different types to achieve faster loading times for the entire site. For example, for a standard WordPress blog, the level of optimization in this aspect for the main, categories, static pages and posts can be completely different.

Above, I gave an example of a home page that displays post announcements, but in one of the articles, Paige Speed ​​gave a much lower rating:

This happened because posts are usually much more voluminous and include many different kinds of resources and content (images, videos, scripts). Therefore, it is better to start the optimization check with them. By the way, from this point of view, start from the assessment that Page Speed ​​provides mobile phones as achieving decent download speeds on such devices requires a lot more body movements.

But even different pages of records may differ in quality. This is also due to the fact that some of them run additional scripts that slow down the loading. For example, the level of optimization of one of these web pages caused me not only surprise, but a real shock:

It is quite obvious that 62 points out of 100 possible is not the result to which one should strive. And all because on this and a number of pages of posts I have a script of the SyntaxHighlighter plugin that initiates a beautiful design of highlighted codes.

There may be several such extensions on the site. In each specific case, you need to decide for yourself how important the plugin is for your resource in terms of the functionality that it provides. And depending on this, you either need to remove it, or take steps to optimize that will help speed up page loading.

The above is especially true for the world's most popular CMS, which is used by the overwhelming majority of webmasters. This multifunctional engine is good for everyone, but it needs to be constantly debugged in terms of reducing the load on the server and reducing the page load time. Therefore, the owners of web resources working on WP should take note of this. And the presence of such a service as Paige Speed ​​is very useful here.

Be sure to read all these articles at least in view mode by clicking on the links provided above, perhaps you will find a lot of useful things for yourself. In the future, I plan to return more than once to the problem of speeding up web resources, and therefore you can subscribe so as not to miss the release of fresh publications on this topic.

Finally, watch a helpful video to learn why Page Speed ​​tips are advisory and why you shouldn't follow them fanatically.

Google PageSpeed ​​Insights, a service that provides advice on speeding up your site, has long gained popularity. You may have come across his recommendations even if you have never opened the project page. SEO agencies and freelancers love to tuck the results of analysis into their offers and audits, trying to impress the client with an abundance of terminology and harsh headlines like "Please fix it."

Therefore, to understand what is Google PageSpeed ​​Insights and is it mandatory to follow its recommendations, is needed not only for developers, but also for site owners / managers of Internet projects.

This was the introduction. And now the promised nuance.

Google PageSpeed ​​Insights is designed to test different versions of the same page. Comparing the ratings of different sites is a pointless exercise.

Do you understand? Google PageSpeed ​​Insights is NOT a website speed measurement service. It is a tool showing possible points of effort to optimize page load speed. And of course, the rating in the service does not directly affect the ranking, and therefore the use of recommendations in SEO reports is deceit. Unless the implementation of these tips really has a critical impact on the user experience.

You can end there, but you wouldn't be reading this blog if you don't like proofs. Well, let's speculate.

How much is real load speed and PageSpeed ​​rating related?

Not really. Here are two screenshots from the service.

1. Test results for a page containing a lot of text and pictures:

Despite the size, the page loads at an acceptable speed - you can check it yourself.

2..php - it contains a loading delay of 5 seconds (the sleep (5) function):

The difference is 20 points, the first page is in the "red" zone, the second - in the "yellow". Oops!

Pretty visual, isn't it? Remember: a bad rating is not the same as a long download. It's just an indicator that the page can be made faster. But 2 times faster or 2% faster - the service, of course, will not tell. Not because something is wrong with him. It's just meant for someone else, and that's okay. It is up to the developer to make the decisions.

Okay, but high rankings are still good for SEO, aren't they? Since this is a service from Google itself!

The argument, in my opinion, is rather weak. As shown above, the score given by the tool is not related to the characteristics that are really important to the user.

Those. this rating is more noise than a useful signal for searching. Leading sites with complex JS functionality are often in the "red" zone. But projects originally from zero, created on one HTML, can give 80-90 points. By the way, Google has never argued about the relationship between the ranking of its service and ranking.

But let's say this is a really important ranking factor. What would we observe then? The TOPs would be dominated by sites with high ratings. Is there such a thing? No!

Here is a screenshot of a site from the TOP-2 Google for the query "plastic windows moscow":

Of course, this is an isolated example. But if this factor was really significant, such a site would not be admitted to the TOP. You can find many other cases in equally competitive topics.

That is why - first of all, we think about the real loading speed of the site (you can check, for example, from http://www.webpagetest.org/). If the speed is not very good (worse than competitors), then first we work on optimizing the database and scripts that display content. Their illiterate organization is the reason for most of the "brakes". And then PageSpeed ​​Insights will come in handy.

So now you know that sometimes you can ignore threatening advice like "Make sure you fix it" - even if it comes from Google. Good luck!

Page loading speed is now a very powerful signal for search engines. And for users, this is a significant factor, which is difficult not to pay attention to if there are problems with it. By improving your site speed, you can not only get ranking pluses, but also get more credibility and conversion rate. Below is a list of the most useful tools to help you analyze and identify your site's weakest points in terms of speed.

1. Google PageSpeed ​​Insights

Google page load speed estimation tool. Shows a value between 0 and 100 for both computers and mobile devices. He immediately points out the weak points of the site and gives recommendations for optimizing the speed.

2. Pingdom Tools

Gives an estimate of the speed, shows the number of requests to the server and the average load time. The pivot table displays data in detail for each request to the server (styles, scripts, images, etc.). It is easy to assess what exactly is slowing down loading on the site.

3. WhichLoadFaster

You load two sites for comparison (yourself and a competitor), visually observe who loads faster (it is convenient to demonstrate to clients). At the end of the download, information is displayed which site won and how many times faster it loaded.

4. Web Page Performance Test

Loads the page twice, compares the number of hits - reveals how well caching is organized, shows detailed statistics for each of the tests. Saves screenshots of how the site looks at every second of loading. It also shows in a convenient form which group of requests took the most time. The server is located in Dallas (USA).

5. GTmetrix

Another useful tool for testing website speed. Displays a lot of summary information, also stores history so that you can compare how much the download speed has improved or deteriorated. Loads Yahoo and Google recommendations for speed optimization, sorting them by priority. The test server is located in Vancouver, Canada.

6. Load Impact

The service tests how the site can withstand the load (light DDOS). Several dozen users and more than a hundred active connections are emulated. Since the test lasts a few minutes, other tools can be used during this load time to estimate the page load speed during rush hour. At the end of the test, you can see a graph of how the download speed changes from the number of active users.

7. Monitis Tools

Analyzes site loading from different parts of the Earth - servers in the USA, Europe and Asia. Displays summary statistics for each test.

8. SiteSpeed.me

Sends requests to the analyzed page from different data centers (about 30 servers) and determines the speed for each of them. Highlights the best, worst and average indicators in time and speed.

9. PR-CY

Bulk site speed checker. You can specify up to 10 addresses - thus comparing the download time and document size for each resource.

10. WebPage Analyzer

Report on page load and all additional scripts / styles / images. A simple and often needed tool.

If you use any other free online tools to check the page loading speed of a site, share them in the comments.