From around March 2009 Google started to openly use the load time of pages to influence search engine results, and even encourage users to do so. The March 2010 increased the importance of speed Even at an reported 1% influence on page ranking it has had a drastic result on the web.
What is it?
In your Google Webmaster tools you can find the Google Site Performance tool under the Labs section of the navigation. It measures of how fast your site loads based on data collected from Google web browsers and browser plugins.
Rather cleverly it measures your page speed rates your site against other sites. As well as a good, medium or bad score you're given a percentile ranking.
Why is it important?
Page load time have time and time again been proven to increase user retention and conversion rates, both Amazon and Google have published studies that show a need for a 4 second maximum load time and a 0.5% drop in users for every 400 milliseconds longer that a page takes to load. While there has always been an obvious need to optimise page load times this change seems to have prompted an arms race for the fastest site.
Our Experience
Increasing speed increases rankings. A lot.
The problem is that getting a good speed on your site is a moving target. Because Google compares your speed with other sites, and everyone is always trying to get faster, you have to keep working at it.
For example, in late 2010 as an example for a presentation I optimised a sites page load times. The site was already running on a fast and capable server, using a content management system that performed admirably even under heavy loads so there were no server side optimisations to do. To optimise the site from a 4.5 second page load to a sub 1 second load time involved removing unnecessary Javascript libraries, compressing images, combining CSS into one single file and importantly moving all images and files to a Content Delivery Network (CDN). This put the site into the top 10% of all sites on the internet. Not bad for 2 - 3 hours work.
As part of house keeping in May 2011, under 6 months later the site has dropped to only be in the top 30% of the sites on the internet. What's gone wrong, on investigation the site still loads in under 1 second, what was scoring in the top 20% 12 months ago, isn’t now.
It seems that the rest of the internet has suddenly taken page load seriously.
What does it mean for me?
Fantastic news for users, not so for web developers tasked with optimising sites.
We have entered into a page load arms race, no longer will optimising images be enough, combining images into image sprites with clever CSS to only display the correct image is currently the base line for success. Moving static files to a Content Delivery Networks, old school, now you've got to map these files across multiple sub domains so browsers can download the resources in parallel. Combining CSS into one single file and removing whitespace used to be enough, now it's become about removing inefficient CSS rules to improve the rendering time in a browser. Optimising HTTP requests and building in redundancy is now a must if you want to compete.
Summary
Don’t get me wrong, better page speed is good news from a user perspective: ignore all the technical terms and it basically means your going to have a faster internet. Websites will be easier to navigate more responsive as engineers fight to improve their sites. However, if you run a site and are wondering if you should optimise the site for SEO, the truth you should probably start by looking at speed.
The goal posts are moving. Like all aspects of SEO it should be a process of continual improvement rather than a project.
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