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
-
Individual statistics (not aggregated) for 'local pack' and 'organic search results' when both on the same page
Hi, For a particular keyword combination we show up on the local pack but also on the organic search results on the 1st page. I have never been able to find out what the CTR, #clicks, conversions for this two different kinds of positions are individually. The aggregate figures I can find out in Google Search Console / Analytics, but I would like to know on an individual level as I am testing out different things. With the statistics on Google My Business I can't get along actually...no CTR as far as i know. Any hint? Cheers, Cesare
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Cesare.Marchetti1 -
Email Campaign Tracking within Domain & Subdomains
What is the best process to track conversions/visits in Google Analytics when running an email campaign that links to both a sub-domain and then the main domain? To elaborate further, we have an email marketing campaign that directs users to a subdomain (e.g. promos.website.com) within the subdomain we include our products. Once a user clicks on the promos, they are taken to our main website (e.g website.product1.com). What is the best process to track conversions from this email campaign that leads users to the sub-domain first, then to the main site (where the conversions take place)? We have URL tagging in the Email Campaign - but not able to see the true conversions show up in Analytics on the main site. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SEO5Team0 -
Any possibility to track goal completions/conversions at a sub-page (non-landing page) level in Google Analytics?
We’re promoting our sub-page it's http://www.flightcentre.ca/flights/london on our homepage under the slideshow so I need to see how many people went to the homepage, then went to this page, and then converted (enquired or booked.) What I can’t see is how many people did that. I know how to look up how many people landed on that page and then converted, but I need to know how many people navigated there and then converted. Is that possible? I can only see Goal Completions if I look at that page as a landing page, but that only presents a very slim view of the total visits when compared to those pages generally. Any way to check the entire behavior or activities happening through this page i.e. /flights/london?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | flightcentre200 -
Google Adwords Offered to Redesign My Website & A/B Test... Thoughts?
I received a call from the Google Adwords team today offering to redesign major pages of my website & A/B test their design against mine. The rep said that this is not a standard service they offer and that we had been "selected". Despite it's overt marketing overtones, I would hate to pass by the opportunity to apply Google's conversion insight to my site. Has anyone experienced this before? Good experience? Bad experience?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Glathrop1 -
Better Conversions with Java Script Pop Up Form or with Independent Page (URL)?
Greetings MOZ Community? I manage a commercial real estate site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). Visitors view listings (for example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings/303-broadway-building-office-sublet-11189sf). If they want more details they click on the "Interested In This Space, Contact a Broker" button. They get directed to a contact us form like: http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/contact-us?from_listing=303-broadway-building-office-sublet-11189sf We are redesigning this form. Remove much of the text and allowing the visitor to check questions pertaining to the property, like "Schedule a Tour", "Get Floorplans", "Details on Similar Space'. Currently this conversion form is on its own URL, and as such has menus on top, which I am concerned could distract the visitor. Would we get better conversions if this form was a Java script pop up with no menus. That way there would be no distraction for the visitor and we would have a better chance of converting them. Any thoughts? Also, we are using Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics to track conversions. Would changing to a Java Script pop up form have any implications for tracking? Thanks everyone!!! Alan
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 -
Google Analytics e-commerce tracking on multiple pages
Hi, I work in the airline industry and we are trying to implement Google analytics on our site. We are at the stage of getting e-commerce tracking setup. The problem we face is that we have multiple receipt pages (booking confirmation pages in our case) instead of just one as most carts would have. These are completely independent of each other. My question is can I use the same e-commerce tracking code on each page or do I need to setup multiple trackers. I reviewed the documentation here: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/ecommerce#multitracker however I'm unsure if multiple trackers are needed when using it on multiple pages or is this just for multiple trackers on the same booking confirmation page. any help on this would be greatly appreciated
Conversion Rate Optimization | | aerlingus0 -
Ideal product page conversion/retention rate for eCommerce sites
Hi SEOmoz-ers, I was wondering if anyone has data regarding product page abandonment rate (% of potential customers that leave the site after seeing product pages) for websites like Overstock, REI or Zappos? As you may know the above mentioned sites do an exceptional job with product pages. It would be helpful to know what some of the leaders in this space are achieving in terms of conversion rate. What is your personal opinion about this? Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kush_VMI
Kush0