Google Considering Site Speed as a Factor for Pagerank
by Frank Jovine on 11/24/2009 in Google
The buzz is flying in the SEO space about site speed having weight on Pagerank. It seems odd that Google will add such an indicator to its algorithm. What about sites like eBay, iStockphoto and Flickr to name a few? Will these sites be penalized due to their massive index of content and images? I doubt it.
During the last PubCon, Matt Cutts made a couple of interesting comments on this topic.
- Matt confirmed (this has been known for some time) that page speed is already used as a metric for ads on the AdWords.
- Site speed may be one of the 200 factors used to determine Pagerank.
I doubt that speed will be the only factor. I think Google will use speed factor coupled with bounce rate to determine that high bounce rate of a particular page is influenced by the page loading speed. At least that’s what I am hoping.
How to Speed Up WordPress
First off, if you have a WordPress blog, there are many ways to improve the speed of your site.
- Remove unnecessary php calls and change them to HTML. Read this article here.
- Add the WP-Super Cache Plug-in.
- Avoid using JavaScript’s that are resource hogs.
- Use no more than two web analytic services.
- Display no more than six posts displayed on your blogs homepage. If you’re using excerpts, than you can double that number.
- Make use of thumbnail images.
- Avoid using too many plug-ins. I try to keep it less than 10.
How to Speed Up a Website
- Make use of style sheets.
- Avoid using JavaScript’s that are resource hogs.
- Use no more than two web analytic services.
- Make use of thumbnail images.
- Avoid using too many web services.
Turbo charge your website now!
Jonathan - Advanced Life Skills
Nov 24th, 2009
Thanks Frank for giving us the heads up, and some steps we can take to use this change to our advantage. Appreciated!
Frank J
Nov 24th, 2009
Jonathan,
I am thrilled to help and hope everyone takes this into consideration.
Kerry Dean
Nov 24th, 2009
Awesome post. People definitely need to know this. Site speed/pageload time has been a factor for Google’s paid search quality score for a long time. And it’s definitely a factor for SEO. But most importantly, it’s common sense from a usability standpoint. If you have a site that takes 10 seconds to load, your bounce rate will be amazingly high. To me, it’s not even an SEO/PPC issue as much as it is a matter of usability/conversion.
Frank J
Nov 24th, 2009
Kerry,
As a student of SEO, bounce rate can result in slow page loads. When I come across a website that takes too long to load, I usually hit the famous back button.
BunnygotBlog
Nov 24th, 2009
Thanks Frank,
You give the best info.
BadEvan
Nov 24th, 2009
Wow! I can see the logic of adding site speed to the list of factors… But I can’t see it being a major factor. Most of the main, trusted, sites that people visit every day (sites that get millions of hits/pg views) are very “slow”.
I guess it’s good news for us that don’t have 25+ gig of data on our sites or thousands of people viewing that data every second of every day…
I think this is a ploy to get the “big boys” to start using more of the Google site design protocols. Or it’s a move to completely kill of PageRank’s value. Think about it. If Ebay or Facebook drop in PageRank… does it really mean anything?
Ps, glad to see the sharks are back
Susie
Nov 24th, 2009
Than I am scre@#@$%d
Mike McEvoy
Nov 25th, 2009
Good info. It will be interesting to see if this has much impact.
On a totally different note, I’ve been meaning to comment on the site redesign. It looks great, real clean and easy to digest. Well done.
Frank J
Nov 25th, 2009
Mike,
Thank you for the compliment, it’s appreciated.
Rick
Nov 25th, 2009
when will you guys stop confusing serp rankings with page rank? this has nothing to do with page rank, site speed will affect your site postitions in the search results, not the PR.
Frank J
Nov 25th, 2009
Rick,
Did you not read the post and the source?
Jake
Nov 25th, 2009
This is very good information to know as we are always concerned about Pagerank. I like the thought of limiting the number of plugins used for site speed purposed as you mentioned, but also because I fear relying on them too much. What I mean is, building a site around essential plugins that may not be supported in the future concerns me a bit.
Frank J
Nov 25th, 2009
Jake,
I am pleased that you enjoyed the post and you are right about the plug-in statement regarding future support. I only use about 10 plug-ins that have been around and supported since WP 2.5.
Bellamy
Nov 25th, 2009
Interesting move for Google. With super fast broadband being so popular these days, I for one never really paid too much attention to stuff like this. I guess I will have to now…
Frank J
Nov 26th, 2009
Bellamy,
It’s important to keep tabs on your website performance more so now than ever before.
Emil Croskey
Nov 26th, 2009
Speed of loading has always had an effect since if it takes awhile for your site to load people will move on.
Frank J
Nov 26th, 2009
Emil,
It appears Google is going to add site speed to their algo that will have an effect on PR.
Computer Tech Stuff
Dec 1st, 2009
too bad for those who have slow and low bandwidth sites.
this is something like the rich will be richer.
Frank J
Dec 1st, 2009
You get what you pay for. I would consider a host that has the network and hardware to scale up in situations that call for it.
facebook application development
Dec 1st, 2009
Yes, This is seemed that Google consider page loading speed for PR.
Technokrz
Dec 2nd, 2009
Thanks for the info. I really surprise about this. There’s a lot more thing that I need to learn about building good blog/website.