Website Speed – A 2010 Ranking Factor
At PubCon (November 2009), Matt Cutts from Google said there is a strong push at Google to introduce Website Speed as new ranking factor into the algorithm. Matt described this as one of his ‘what to expect in 2010? bullet points in his presentation at Pubcon in Las Vegas.
Google’s co-founders want search to be real fast, really fast! And one way they can influence the overall speed of the internet is to make sure faster web pages rank better than slower ones in the Google search results forcing webmasters to improve site speed or lose rankings!
Before we get too excited, keep in mind that there are over 200 ranking factors in the algorithm and each are weighted differently. So, it is unclear how important this algorithm change might be…..however, we feel that when Google provides us a ‘hint’ to improving rankings, we should pay attention.
Here are some initial techniques & best practices to improve your Website Speed:
Compress Images & Text
Image compression is minimizing the size in bytes of a graphics file without degrading the quality of the image to an unacceptable level. The reduction in file size reduces the time required for images to be sent over the Internet or downloaded from Web page thus improving the performance of the site. In image compression, a small loss in quality is usually not noticeable.
There is no “critical point” up to which compression works perfectly, but beyond which it becomes impossible. Every image that has not gone through image compression should do so. Here is a link to quite a few free online tools that allow you to compress images for free. http://www.dailyseoblog.com/2009/07/10-image-optimization-tools-to-help-reduce-image-file-sizes-page-load-time/
Limit Requests
Make as few requests as possible (consolidate JS & CSS) – Every time you call a .js file or a .css file from your web page you are making a request from the server. Every time you have to wait for the server to respond and provide you will the information you requested.
Combine Script Calls
It would be must more efficient if we combined all of our calls for .js into one file and only called the server once for this information and it would also keep this extra load off of the server. So the takeaway is to combine all of your .js files into one file include so that you only make 1 call to the server and speed up performance. Same goes for .css files also.
Use Caching
Use Caching when possible for pages and images – Caching is the temporary storage of frequently accessed pages/images in higher speed media (typically SRAM or RAM) for more efficient retrieval. Web caching stores frequently used objects closer to the client through browser, proxy, or server caches. By storing “fresh” objects closer to your users, you avoid round trips to the origin server, reducing bandwidth consumption, server load, and most importantly, latency.
Caching is not just for static sites, even dynamic sites can benefit from caching. Graphics and multimedia typically don’t change as frequently as (X)HTML files. Graphics that seldom change like logos, headers, and navigation can be given longer expiration. Depending on the server type the setting are different but all servers have the ability to set up caching for the most frequent pages and images.
Cut Down Connections
Make as few connections to other domains as possible – Calling 3rd party domains from your pages can slow down your load time dramatically. It is very hard to control the speed at which the information is being set back to you and can slow down your sites response rate. Make as few calls to other sites as possible and make sure you want the speed at which they are delivering your information back to you.
Remove Bad Connections
Any time a connection hangs, does not respond or throws a 3xx error search engines see this as poor website design and could see this as a negative against your site. Just like 400 or 300 errors that are not handled properly we need to make sure our connections are just as clean.
Related posts:
Search Engine News | seowhitehats | November 30, 2009
Perhaps one thing worth adding here is the Page Speed add-on for Firefox that Google has developed and is encouraging. There are a number of issues which SEO people have criticised in this in terms of specific recommendations for speeding up a page. YSlow! seems to have less controversy around it.
Wow! I’ve NEVER seen Google write so much detail as they did on their Google Code > Page Speed help page. I believe web page speed will be a very important factor.
I wonder how web hosting companies marketing efforts will change in light of this? On sites like WebCop it is clear that some hosts have a massive edge when it comes to performance.
Pretty proficient post. I stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say your information seems legit. Will keep informed. Thanks.
If you’re really into saving additional milliseconds, here is a comprehensive guide published by Yahoo, which is based on a ton of research conducted by Yahoo. However, this blog post from SEO white Hats covers what 95% of us really need:
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html