Page Speed & SERPS
-
What impact does page speed have on rankings in the search engine?
If I have a Site that is heavy with Pictures, Onsite videos and various scripts that would ultimately be of good use to a viewer but takes time to load.
VS
A Site that has pictures that are fully optimized for the web or eliminated to save on load time, Videos that are hosted on Sites like VIMEO or You Tube and eliminate scripts where possible and use css3. Note the site loads faster and is better for mobil but doesn't have the same feel of the first site but is useful to the user.
Now let's say that both sites are virtual twins in terms of their link profile, age, content quality, location and citations.
Will one rank better because of load time?
It's the quest for creating the ultimate site for users while delivering it within the fastest time possible.
-
Hi,
All the answers are just amazing! I just want to share my 2 cents on this topic.
If both sites have the same link juice, age, content quality, location and citations and only the load speed is different, I believe the site that loads faster will rank better.
In one of Google Webmasters Blog article, they mentioned that they are obsessed with load speed and do use Site Load Speed as a signal in their search ranking algorithms. It may not weight heavily compared to other signals but for 2 virtual identical sites, the one that loads faster wins.
Furthermore, as Darin mentioned, if your site loads faster then Google will also be able to crawl more of your pages, if more pages are crawled, then more of your pages will have the chance of appearing on the search engine result page.
Also quoting from Google Webmaster Blog: "We encourage you to start looking at your site's speed (the tools above provide a great starting point) — not only to improve your ranking in search engines, but also to improve everyone's experience on the Internet."
-
You might also want to check out https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/ to see if there are any suggestions Google can give you to make your site faster.
-
Good read on the subject => http://www.seomoz.org/blog/15-tips-to-speed-up-your-website
-
CDN- Content Delivery Network
-
There was a Google Webmaster Blog Post back in 2010 talking about this so I would read up on it.
Basically, I personally don't feel a slower page will rank worse unless it's obviously super slow. (ie, Flash or 5 second load times) The key is that Google manages how it crawls your site depending on load time so that it doesn't take up too much of your server when it crawls. So if your pages crawl faster, Google can crawl more of them at one time.
I have seen some of my sites rank faster when I did a few things to them to speed them up but I think it had more to do with on-page metrics and UX and not necessarily with load time.
Here are some pointers for your sites speed.
-
For pages that have a lot of photos (large ones especially) I would have those photos on another site and load it from there. Web browsers can load from multiple domains at the same time, saving a lot of load time
-
Make sure your css is in .css files and not embeded directly on each page (same goes for javascript and .js files)
-
Set up cache on your server.
To answer your question, I don't think one or the other will rank over the other because of load time. But, remember, there is a point when your load time becomes to slow and the UX is hurt and therefore visitors don't stay on the page and leave. That would hurt the rankings.
-
-
Thank you for your response. What are the best ways to minimize page load times? What are the biggest offenders of page load times? Finally, what is CDN?
-
I want to start off by saying I'm a huge stickler for page load speed. Not only is it important to SEO but it is even more important for UX -- especially with bounce rate/conversion rate.
Again, this is all hypothetical, but if the two sites are identical in all other aspects, the page that has the fastest load time would rank better.
Just as a point of reference, using Vimeo/YouTube isn't the only other solution to making your site load faster. You can/should consider things like a CDN -- Especially for video if nothing else. Also, video itself shouldn't slow down page load time as the video itself shouldn't load until someone clicks the "play button"
-
I want to start off by saying I'm a huge stickler for page load speed. Not only is it important to SEO but it is even more important for UX -- especially with bounce rate/conversion rate.
Again, this is all hypothetical, but if the two sites are identical in all other aspects, the page that has the fastest load time would rank better.
Just as a point of reference, using Vimeo/YouTube isn't the only other solution to making your site load faster. You can/should consider things like a CDN -- Especially for video if nothing else. Also, video itself shouldn't slow down page load time as the video itself shouldn't load until someone clicks the "play button"
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
-
SERP always between 1-3, Should I remarket?
Hey guys. My business consistently ranks 1-3 on SERP (google) and starting to wonder if my newly launched remarketing campaign is a waste of money. My CTR has consistently been 10%. However, I am unable to track actual conversions because of a cross domain\3rd party I am using. I can see those clicks are decent Time on Site and page views. Of course Google is telling my its capped because of budget. What to do? Am I competing with myself? Would the visitors showed up anyways? Anyone have some insight they would like to share? I really don't wanna waste the $$ if I don't need to. Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | DougDeVore
Doug0 -
Will Landing Page Design with Large Areas of White Background Enjoy a Higher Conversion Rate?
My designer has created a landing page with a dark background. Text is white and other colors. Does a dark background impact the conversion rate? Is it better to have a white background? I am concerned that a dark background may distract visitors. The landing page is: http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/MidtownLawOfficeSublet3300SFBelowMarket We plan on using this landing page for LinkedIn advertising. Thanks!!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kingalan10 -
Help with ecommerce duplicate pages and SEO advice(magento base site)
Hi, We have a magento build site (www.mokee.eu) and are selling our own branded goods. So far it is a very limited range of products. It's 1 baby crib in 5 variations. We recently started getting more sales from the site, so I started to look a bit more into optimising our site. I rewrote item name, created better descriptions, added meta titles and description etc. and subscribed to the MOZ analytics platform to understand a bit better ways to improve things up. From what I saw we have a big issue of duplicated content because our product pages are the same and only the product colour changes, which is something google apparently doesn't like However it is important for us that each colour get referenced by google so people who search for grey cot can find a picture of our grey cot etc... Also I was thinking to create only on multi variation page with all colour but when you have only 1 product to sell it might look a bit empty on the site. 1- Do you guys have some advise on how to go round this issue? 2- Do you have any other advise for my site in particular to optimise things and actually do you think i should be worried at all with such a small catalogue? Thanks Sam
Conversion Rate Optimization | | mokeestore0 -
Landing page experts, for lead gen conversion
If I am wanting to hire a conversion expert, especially for PPC landing pages in the insurance space. Do you think that the expert should be specific to the insurance space or just to landing pages to get the maximize conversion optimization?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | jdcline0 -
Does the word next to domain gives more relevancy to the page of it's URL?
Whether putting a (category or brand) word next to domain is better than on the end of an URL? (i.e. domain.com/sony/tvs or domain.com/tv/sony) Which one would get higher result on SERP "tv" or "sony" in both cases? Or maybe they both serves the same?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | komeksimas0 -
Page URL - Hyphens or Underscores?
What's better for SEO and why? (any references would be greatly appreciated) For the purpose of a URL of a page is it better to use: Hyphens Underscores Would hyphens or underscores be better for Google Adwords?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | HMCOE0 -
Need Advice on Home page Conversion Rate Improvement - not much $$s
Anyone out there have some suggestions for how I can improve my home page and increase my lousy conversion rate? I've spent years on the content and SEO optimization of my site and very little time on making a home page that sells stuff. Caveat - I don't have the money to go to one of those fancy companies who do a complete makeover and charge in the tens of thousands. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Jean http://www.northwest-wine.com
Conversion Rate Optimization | | JeanYates0 -
Rel="author" On Normal Pages
Hello, I know you can add rel="author" to blog posts but has anyone tried adding them to normal pages? Does it work? Does it improve CTR? Thanks, Scott
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ScottBaxterWW0