That’s the question heating up blog airwaves since Google incorporated site speed as one of more than 200 signals used to determine search rankings.
To get answers, site owners are using the Google Page Speed Tool and Google Webmaster Tools > Site Performance to track the speed of their site. The tool is bringing relief to some and heartburn to others. For those of you who are experiencing the latter, let us help you interpret what the tool compares—and what comparisons would be more valuable.
The tool may report your site is slower than XX% of sites on the Internet because it’s comparing very simple pages with a few images and little or no dynamic content. More valuable comparisons are whether your pages are faster—or as fast—than your ranking competitors and comparing actual page types. For example, if you have a blog, what are the page speeds of other blogs? If you have an ecommerce store, what are the speeds of other ecommerce stores?
Another tip about learning if your page is speedy enough for search rankings, is to assume sites that have achieved first page rank in certain categories already have a page speed that is acceptable to Google. So learning how you compare to these sites is also a valuable guideline.
Read Part 2 blog that shares simple, straightforward ways to improve page speed.