SEO Tycoon

**goodpracticeweb** · 03-22-2010, 01:11 PM

Hi all,

So what's everyone's take on site speed as a ranking factor, for example on Google? I was looking in Webmaster Tools and there is a Site Performance graph.

If a site is particularly slow, I imagine it may lose some favour with Google, but if you're about average, do you think this would reflect on your ranking? My guess it probably not that much, but it has got me thinking.

Is it worth investing in a faster server, for example?

**ThailandForum** · 03-22-2010, 02:21 PM

Site speed in ranking has been put on hold for now, hopefully will be implimented soon though.
Your visitors are your potential customers, are they worth you investing in a faster server?

**tinggg** · 03-22-2010, 09:00 PM

80-90% of slow page load happens at the frontend of your website i.e. between the web server and the visitor browser and not on the server. While an optimized server will help its not where the greatest improvements can be made. For that you've got to jump on the frontend and optimize by reducing http requests, compressing page resources, increase caching, image combining and inlining.

Run your site through webpagetest.org to help you identify where the blockages that slow down your site are. YSlow is also good. Then optimize by hand or use something like a website accelerator to automate the optimization tasks for you. Don't be fooled into being told a faster server will solve all your slow page load problems, it will help a 'bit' but its not where the major time savings are found. There's a good video here that helped me understand why a webpage can be slow -

http://www.youtube.com/aptimize#p/a/u/1/pWBbFpQx5DE

**virtualassis** · 03-23-2010, 01:15 AM

Google becomes more user-friendly now, so just make your site accordingly.

**dannyexacta** · 03-23-2010, 02:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by virtualassis

Google becomes more user-friendly now, so just make your site accordingly.

You are absolutely right dude.

**Sierra Charlie** · 03-23-2010, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinggg

80-90% of slow page load happens at the frontend of your website i.e. between the web server and the visitor browser and not on the server. While an optimized server will help its not where the greatest improvements can be made.

Nice reply there. Page Speed is not a ranking factor as yet. But having a better server can sure help. According to Matt Cutts Google don't care about the page speed. But if the server is slow, it can affect the crawling. That is an issue. Check this page for more info.

**~ServerPoint~** · 03-23-2010, 05:35 AM

If your web site is slow - that is not good for your visitors. But not for seo unless you have poor uptime
Change the host

**marykaichini** · 03-23-2010, 07:04 AM

Slow speed can influence the traffic on your site as there are few people who are very patient to wait till the site downloads.

**strongella** · 03-23-2010, 11:07 AM

I learned things while reading the thread... thanks for that people

**mimamo** · 03-23-2010, 01:22 PM

Usually people leave your site if it`s loading slower than 5-6 seconds..
I usually speed up my sites to load in around 3 seconds...even faster sometimes..
You need a good server, but you also need a clean site

**Plexihost** · 03-23-2010, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mimamo

Usually people leave your site if it`s loading slower than 5-6 seconds..
I usually speed up my sites to load in around 3 seconds...even faster sometimes..
You need a good server, but you also need a clean site

I couldn't agree more! I can't understand why some people create a website that is basically the entire website on one page. It takes like 5 minutes to load and you could scroll all day and still never find the bottom of the page.

Hopefully Google implementing page speed score will make people more aware of the speed their site loads and stop them from making these type of pages.

**babalahost** · 03-24-2010, 01:05 AM

On generally, a fast web hosting is do better than a slow web hosting.

Not only google will consider this but also your visitors mind this.

Google's Bot exactly consider the speed of your website and that will influence your PR in google engine.

Considering your visitors, If they need to spending a few minutes on loading your webpage rather than a few seconds, Do you think they will come back next time.

There are so many websites which are similar with yours. People will chose fast and substantial one.

So Purchasing a fast web hosting to place your website is very necessary.

**aadam** · 03-24-2010, 06:43 AM

the faster a site is the better your page will rank, but to what extent yet is unkown

**CyberFreak** · 03-24-2010, 05:17 PM

if your site load a lot of time then may be a chance your visitor irritated and leave improving your site speed dont use lot of images specially outside image server make your site purely web 2.0

**ugoodibetter** · 04-18-2010, 10:51 PM

IMHO, although site speed is a new signal, it can not outweigh relevance.

We still need to focus on getting quality backlinks.

**Sierra Charlie** · 04-19-2010, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sierra Charlie

Nice reply there. Page Speed is not a ranking factor as yet. But having a better server can sure help. According to Matt Cutts Google don't care about the page speed. But if the server is slow, it can affect the crawling. That is an issue. Check this page for more info.

Oh well. Here we go with the eternal unpredictability of SEO. Google DOES take site speed as a ranking signal.

C**p. It's not even been a month since I wrote this. Sulk yourself. Here's the link.

**MikeJsimon** · 04-19-2010, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThailandForum

Site speed in ranking has been put on hold for now, hopefully will be implimented soon though.

it has been implemented by the launch of new Google Caffeine.

**FenceGuy** · 04-19-2010, 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThailandForum

Site speed in ranking has been put on hold for now, hopefully will be implimented soon though.
Your visitors are your potential customers, are they worth you investing in a faster server?

Did Google announce this was put on hold? It was my understanding that load speed was already affecting SERP's.

**chrishirst** · 04-19-2010, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeJsimon

it has been implemented by the launch of new Google Caffeine.

Nope, it has been implemented as a separate change to the Caffeine rollout.

**chrishirst** · 04-19-2010, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FenceGuy

Did Google announce this was put on hold? It was my understanding that load speed was already affecting SERP's.

Matt Cutts said

Quote:

Google's Matt Cutts told us that speed may soon be a ranking factor.

"Historically, we haven't had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast," says Cutts. "It should be a good experience, and so it's sort of fair to say that if you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much."

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/20...factor-in-2010

Google have also stated that less than 1% of pages/sites will be affected by the Caffeine update.