Google embraces another factor in its algorithm and it is none other than site speed. Google’s obsession with speed is nothing new but still, its latest announcement in which it has declared to include site speed as a ranking factor has sparked widespread rumor among webmasters and website owners.
Google feels satisfaction of a user is directly dependent on the speed of a website and therefore, the only way to increase the happiness of its users is the eliminating of slow sites and inclusion faster sites in its search results. Since this is an official announcement, optimising your site speed should be included in your search engine optimisation checklist while performing SEO for your client or your own website.
However, if grapevines are to be believed, there were some other reasons behind this announcement. Actually, Google was desperately looking for some other factors to sort out the best and relevant sites on some competitive search queries. Though Google has not yet scrapped the importance of good and relevant links and quality content, it is passing a small percentage of value to site speed to single out the most suitable sites on a particular search query.
Currently, the impact of this change can only be felt in Google global search (Google.com) and not in any other country specific results such as in Google.co.uk or Google.com.au. Moreover, as it is dictated by Google, its effect can only be felt in less than 1% of search result.
Now, if you do not have any idea of current site speed of your existing website, you would not have to make a hullabaloo. There are some cool and free online tools that can prove highly effective:
WebPagetest
It is a free online tool that lets its visitors analyze site speed and other related issues related to their websites. The test will be conducted from the location specified and you will be provided a waterfall of your page load performance as well as a comparison against an optimization checklist.
Google Webmaster Tool
You need to login in to your Google Webmaster tool account first and then go to Labs > Site Performance. Here you will find all the details and recommendations to improve speed of your website.
Page Speed
It is wonderful open source FireFox/Firebug add-on that comes with innumerable features. It allows web developers to evaluate the performance of their web pages and to get suggestions on how to improve them.
Yslow
Yslow is another Firefox adds on and it comes from Yahoo. By installing this tool, you can analyze the speed performance of your website and it grades web page based on one of three predefined rule set or a user-defined rule set. It also offers suggestions for improving the page’s performance.
However, enhancing speed of your website is not important for securing high ranking in search results only; it has become a necessity for every website to offer better browsing experience to all its visitors, which will definitely have much bigger and powerful impact later.
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