Site Speed, is it worth it from a SEO point?
-
Hi,
I understand a site which loads quickly is greater for the user but how does site speed affect rankings?
I mean does Google log the speed pages load, the faster it loads the better the signal? So say I have a page which loads in 1.5sec would Google 'Rate' the site better if it loaded in say 0.8sec?
Thanks.
-
One easy way that I've found to help with pagespeed is with cloudflare's free subscription. It does a lot to speed up your site, such as auto minifying, css, html and javascript. It also caches your pages and greatly reduces server response times. It also does some other stuff and offers security features which is another benefit.
-
One more here and just because I wanted to clarify this further on what Benjamin mentioned. Yes, site speed is important for SEO and we can go through all the reasons. The real reason you want good site speed is that you make more money as your users are happier. People who come to your site are more likely to convert the faster your site is, regardless of if they came from Google, Bing, Organic, Paid, direct, etc etc.
Amazon has actually calculated this. They estimate that a page load slowdown of 1 seconds would cost Amazon 1.6 billion in sales each year.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1825005/how-one-second-could-cost-amazon-16-billion-sales
This type of research has been done at many other companies, including Google. If you are trying to measure the impact of site speed, don't look just at ranking, look at conversion. There is where the real money is.
-
Not only is is worth it from a search engine point of view but also for your visitors, they want the site to load fast or else they might leave. Check out google speed test https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ to see what you can do to make your website faster.
-
Yes, Google has been fairly overt when it comes to application performance. Just to give you a little insight into how important Google thinks speed is, they cut any internal application if it's even slightly sluggish. And further, wouldn't you think it's significant when they display that they've delivered nine billion results in .0000023454355 seconds?
There are a lot of easy, quick, wins you can have in under five minutes. Here's a couple to start you off.
GZip Compression:
Odds are you're using one of these server flavors. This is a very quick way to increase speed. Just be very careful when editing/updating .htaccess. The slightest bit of white space or a syntax error will take the site down. Your host may even be able to do this for you in some fashion, but a lot of them shy away from even supporting .htaccess. So once you start down that road, it's lonely a one - save for some forums.
Reduce Image File Size:
There are tons of ways to reduce image file size without a lot of hassle. Some will losslessly compress (no reduction in image quality) other forms are 'lossy'.
Google Page Speed Tool (Lossless - In Chrome Dev Console ctrl+shift+j, yo)
There are a ton of other ways, but these are some easy ways to get a faster page.
-
Hi,
I have had great results from speeding up pages of my site and I also spending quite a lot of time, money and effort keeping my pages as fast as possible. If you use tools like GTmetrix and google provides tools in GWMT you will see not only a decrease in pageload time but a boost in organic rankings and an overall better user experience. I agree with Prestashop 100%.
-
In short, yes. I cannot remember which article or which video I saw it in, but one of the guys from google was interviewed and someone said the term "search engine" to him. He replied that Google likes to think of themselves as an "experience engine". That being said, they strive to provide the sites that promote the best user experience. A slow site does not provide that. I would be willing to bet, 10 times out of 10, two sites that were equal in every other aspect, the faster one would rank higher.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
New site migration (multiple sites into one + new domain)
Hi, I have read so many very helpful guides and experiences from you guys that will greatly help me but I have a few questions please. Our company has 3 sites, the main site and 2 sites for different product ranges: BrandProductName.com (main site - DA = 22 raking well for product name) Productname2.com (DA = 10 ranking very well for product name and little competition) BrandProductName3.com (DA = 10 poor ranking) We wish to bring all the sites into one with categories for the 3 different product. The main site is an e-commerece site whereas the other 2 are not (currently). On top of this as the main domain has one of the product names in it they wish to change the domain to be just Brandname.com. So the plan is to combine site 2 and 3 into site 1 and change that domain name. As you can imagine this is going to be quite a job. I am fairly happy with the steps required (having read all the guides and migrated many sites in the past) but with the added domain name change this is a little daunting. So my questions are: Should I merge the 3 sites into 1 and then changed the domain at a later point? Should I change the domain of the main site first and then merge site 2 and 3 in later? Should I just do it all together? Or based on the data i have provided do you disagree with the plan, what would you recommend? We are not in a massive rush to complete all of this so we have the time to plan and execute this when we are fully ready. Any help / advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csimmo0 -
Best way to do site seals for clients to have on their sites
I am about to help release a product which also gives people a site seal for them to place on their website. Just like the geotrust, comodo, symantec, rapidssl and other web security providers do.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ssltrustpaul
I have notices all these siteseals by these companies never have nofollow on their seals that link back to their websites. So i am wondering what is the best way to do this. Should i have a nofollow on the site seal that links back to domain or is it safe to not have the nofollow.
It wont be doing any keyword stuffing or anything, it will probly just have our domain in the link and that is all. The problem is too, we wont have any control of where customers place these site seals. From experience i would say they will mostly likely always be placed in the footer on every page of the clients website. I would like to hear any and all thoughts on this. As i can't get a proper answer anywhere i have asked.0 -
Site re-design, full site domain A/B test, will we drop in rankings while leaking traffic
We are re-launching a client site that does very well in Google. The new site is on a www2 domain which we are going to send a controlled amount of traffic to, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% to 100% over a 5 week period. This will lead to a reduction in traffic to the original domain. As I don't want to launch a competing domain the www2 site will not be indexed until 100% is reached. If Google sees the traffic numbers reducing over this period will we drop? This is the only part I am unsure of as the urls and site structure are the same apart from some new lower level pages which we will introduce in a controlled manner later? Any thoughts or experience of this type of re-launch would be much appreciated. Thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | leshonk0 -
Is it Wortwhile to have a HTML site map for a Large Site
We are a large, enterprise site with many pages (some on our CMS and some old pages that exist outside our CMS). Every month we submit various an XML site map. Some pages on our site can no longer be found via following links from one page to another (orphan pages). Some of those pages are important and some not. Is it worth our while to create a HTML site map? Does any one have any recent stats or blog posts to share, showing how a HTML site map may have benefited a large site. Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CeeC-Blogger0 -
Site revamp for neglected site - modifying site structure, URLs and content - is there an optimal approach?
A site I'm involved with, www.organicguide.com, was at one stage (long ago) performing reasonably well in the search engines. It was ranking highly for several keywords. The site has been neglected for some considerable period of time. A new group of people are interested in revamping the site, updating content, removing some of the existing content, and generally refreshing the site entirely. In order to go forward with the site, significant changes need to be made. This will likely involve moving the entire site across to wordpress. The directory software (edirectory.com) currently being used has not been designed with SEO in mind and as a result numerous similar pages of directory listings (all with similar titles and descriptions) are in google's results, albeit with very weak PA. After reading many of the articles/blog posts here I realize that a significant revamp and some serious SEO work is needed. So, I've joined this community to learn from those more experienced. Apart from doing 301 redirects for pages that we need to retain, is there any optimal way of removing/repairing the current URL structure as the site gets updated? Also, is it better to make changes all at once or is an iterative approach preferred? Many thanks in advance for any responses/advice offered. Cheers MacRobbo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | macrobbo0 -
SEO Provider
At the risk of opening the flood gates, I'm posting this in hopes of finding a SEO provider on this site. I'm currently a member, and have learned a lot through this site, but I'm still having issues ranking higher. Because of this, I have come to the conclusion that I need a dedicated SEO company/professional who can help our company reach the next level. I'm open to suggestions of companies that you have used, or please feel free to throw your hat into the ring. Thanks in advance! AW
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheCTC0 -
Where to point Rel = Canonical?
I have a client who is using the rel=canonical tag across their e-commerce site. Here is an example of how it is set up. URLs 1. http://www.beautybrands.com/category/makeup/face/bronzer.do?nType=22. http://www.beautybrands.com/category/makeup/face/bronzer.doThe canonical tag points to the second URL. Both pages are indexed by Google.The first page has a higher page authority (most of the internal site links go to the first URL) than the second one. Should the page with the highest authority be the one that the canonical tag points to? Is there a better way to handle these situations? Does any authority get passed through the tag?Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0 -
Site structure question
Hello Everyone, I have a question regarding site structure and I would like to mastermind it with everyone. So I am optimizing a website for a Ford Dealership in Boston, MA. The way the site architecture is set up is as follows: Home >>>> New Inventory >>> Inventory Page (with search refinement choices) After you refine your search (lets say we choose a Ford F150 in white) it shows a page with images, price information and specs. (Nothing the bots or users can sink their teeth into) My thoughts are to create category pages for each Ford model with awesome written content and THEN link to the inventory pages. So it would look like this: Home >>> New Inventory >>> Ford 150 Awesome Category Page>>>>Ford F150 Inventory Page I would work hard at getting these category pages to rank for the vehicle for our GEO targeted locations. Here is my questions: Would you be annoyed to first land on a category page with lots of written text, reviews images and videos first and then link off to the inventory page. Or would you prefer to go right from the new inventory page to the actual inventory page and start looking for vehicles? Thanks you so much, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wparlaman0