Page Load And How It Affects SEO

In 2010, Google introduced a new algorithm that will affect how a page is ranked. Loading times, or latency, will now help or damage your search results. This article will explain why this has suddenly become a factor.

Normally, anyone who is creating a website will be thinking of the graphics and the layout first and foremost. Good designers will also be thinking of functionality and efficiency of the website by considering of how quickly the it will load. Nobody wants to sit around for about ten minutes waiting for a page to open. Until recently, the main advantage this brought was that it increased user friendliness. However, in a recent statement from Google, your site's loading times will also now affect your search result rankings.

Statistically, 16% of people will switch off your website if it takes longer than ten seconds to load and only every second person will wait around longer than 15. If your site has a problem with it's loading times, it will be costing you visitors. It is recommended that you keep your pages up to or equal to 150kb. Generally, this will give them the best chance to be opened in the ten second timeframe, even taking into consideration that some people's connections might be slow. But now that Google have introduced this new measure in their site rankings, it adds much more importance on keeping an efficient site. Keeping a page below 150kb will mean that search robots can crawl it fully, giving better chances at a high rankings. The search giant maintain that this is necessary as slow websites work together to slow down the internet in general. Additionally, faster opening sites are linked directly to lower running costs so it's in Google's interest to encourage webmasters and business owners

This was only implemented in the first part of 2010, after which Google released this statement on their official blog in April.

“Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation and the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com at this point. 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.”

There is no doubt that it's influence has spread since and will affect different languages and locations. But Google haven't left people in the dark with this exactly. They have numerous different applications which allow you to test the speed and performance of your site to ensure it's working correctly. For example, WebPagetest is an online tool that will show you your overall efficiency of your site. Page Speed is an open source add-on for Firefox which will show you all the data and than offer suggestions as to where it can be improved.

If your site's rankings have dropped suddenly and for no apparent reason, it's important to check it's performance as that what could be affecting it. Google were not all that vocal about this new (and very important) ranking feature so not many people know about it. Ensure that your web server is running properly and does not have problems. Look at the image sizes on your website, as large galleries and header images can greatly increase data.