Google has introduced a new factor into your ad rank’s quality score – your landing page speed. A slower landing page load time will now negatively impact your quality score which will in turn increase your minimum bids and ad placement rankings. Currently Google is allowing you to see your load times so that if they are slow you can make changes to speed it up and improve your quality score.

To find out what your load time score is log in to your Google AdWords account. Select a campaign and then click on an ad group within that campaign. Then click the “keywords” tab above the “ad group details” table. Click on the magnifying glass icon next to any keyword and chose the “details and recommendations” link. This will open up the “keyword analysis” page. From there you can see an overview of your quality score.

If your load time is slower than it should be Google has offered some time to improve it. They suggest using fewer redirects firstly. Then they mention that you should reduce your page size by using fewer and smaller images that are more compressed. Google also suggested avoiding the use of interstitial pages and minimizing the use of iframes on your landing page.

The reason behind this change is that Google believes a slow load time on a web page equals a bad user experience. Since their goal is to deliver the best user experience possible they want to discourage slow load times. Your load times will be compared with other sites in your same geographical region for part of your score. This metric will go live at the beginning of June.