
Google has been testing a new addition to their ranking system aptly called Caffeine. Why Caffeine? Because, the idea is that Google is looking for ways to speed up search.
In fact, Google has created a web speed resource page to help you do just that. It is titled, Let's Make the Web Faster. So it would seem that if by their own behavior Google is valuing Web speed, then so should you and I if we wish to get higher rankings (SERPS).
Four Ways to Test Your Site Speed
- http://www.webpagetest.org Google's spokeman Matt Cutts recommends this site to test your site's speed. So what the hell, I ran it with HouseBlogger.com.After you are done exclaiming a big huh!!?? Check out a few more speed test sites.
- http://www.websiteoptimization.com/
- http://www.iwebtool.com/speed_test
- http://www.websitegoodies.com/tools/speed-test.php
- http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/download.html
OK. That stuff above is how geeks like to scare you. And chances are you will find them meaningless of you are of just an website owner that wants some good rankings.
Two Major Influencers of Your Website's Speed
With the tips above I would look at what Google says:- Server Speed-Make sure that your host has some testosterone. Simply put, your server is just a computer and a hard drive. So the basics you might look for in a work computer could help you understand your needs in a host server.
For speed you want a server with plenty of Ram and Hard drive speed. Most popular Hosting companies can provide this. However, the cheap solutions offer a shared server. Meaning you share your hard drive space with other websites. So if another website uses lots of resources, your website could slow down.
Thus, you might want to consider a dedicated server for your website. This is much more expensive, but for many reasons beyond the scope of this article well worth the investment if the site is an important asset to your business. I am reluctant to offer actual numbers as far as amount of Ram or amount of hard drive speed. - Webpage Elements: Your website must be running clean code. Many open source solutions like Wordpress blogs run great code. However, many other open source solutions do not validate. What do I mean by validate? Run your website through the W3 Validator. (Many websites do not validate perfectly, but the more perfect your page is, the faster it will load).
Your web designer should know to create a style sheet and off page javascript. One thing you should be careful of is to make sure you squeeze your graphics down to the smallest size possible. Use this tool to crunch your images. Be sure to size your images down to the size you will use in the webpage. In other words, if you want your graphic to be 150x150 in the page post. Then be sure to resize the image to 150 x 150 in your graphics editor. Before you upload the graphic to the server.
A lot of the web site performance tools were targeted at developers to give them the information necessary to fix a site (so sorry for scaring you). As a non-geek, what would be useful information but not too much to scare you?
For example, would it be enough to let you know how your site performs relative to other sites (percentile/rank)? Would some basic user-fixable issues be worth flagging (like if your images should be better compressed)? How about an overall grade with suggestions to have the site developer look at certain high-level things?
Just wondering what a reasonable amount of information would be for a site owner that just wants to know if they have a problem or not without having to pour through all of the techie-specific details that someone would need to fix a problem.
One aspect I'm working on is letting you see how your site looks while it loads relative to other sites ( http://www.webpagetest.org/video/compare.php?tests=091118_32PJ,091118_32PK,091118_32PM ) - which is helpful for understanding the user experience but may not have anything to do with any Pagerank decisions Google makes.
Posted by: Patrick Meenan | November 30, 2009 at 04:14 PM
Very well said in the article the major portion of your website which plays an important part in website rankings. Speed of your website is checked by the google admin that how much time is it taking to open it up. Remember not to use many animations on your website as it reduces the speed of your website.
Regards
Posted by: Dubai Property | December 4, 2009 at 04:13 AM
When Matt Cutts says something the entire seo world should be listening. Google doesn't mess around with these things.
Daniel Kepka - Property In Calgary
Posted by: Daniel Kepka | December 9, 2009 at 01:14 PM