Page load speed may be in Google 2010 algorithm
In a video interview for Web Pro News Matt Cutts has given a clear hint that page load speed will be a part of Googles algorithm next year. Page speed is already part of the AdWords quality score algorithm but until now it’s not directly been part of the main search algorithm.
We’ve always seen the effects of very slow hosting with poor crawl rates and a lack of deep indexing but Google has traditionally not been giving a boost to faster sites.
Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast. It should be a good experience, and so it’s sort of fair to say that if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don’t want that as much.
I think a lot of people in 2010 are going to be thinking more about ‘how do I have my site be fast,’ how do I have it be rich without writing a bunch of custom javascript?’
Video available below, the page speed part is 2 minutes 35 seconds in.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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Keep up Patrick…
Old news already.
Even the Digitalpoint muppets are up to date on this.
What happened to your sharp on the ball posts, or are you turning into a regular ‘rehaser of news’ Blogger.
Yeah its an old news and i have read it a week ago in webpronews and some other SEO blogs, so be update with latest news as it comes, Patrick, its an request from all the regular readers of this blog.
Im glad I installed the WP Super Cache plugin last week
Thanks for sharing!Its good for the public..
I hope all like that …
Keep going
I’m not surprised to see this development in Google’s search algorithm, and think this could definitely be a good thing for the web in general. Poorly built sites can cause havoc for the end user, with slow download speeds, displaying incorrectly and usage of old technologies (such as tables)! Having Google give extra focus on well built sites that have had a lot of effort put into their end user experience is certainly a good thing.
What will be interesting to see here is how much a difference having a well built, fast site will make to your Google listings. If this is only a matter of a single position this would hardly be worthwhile, but if Google designates sites multiple positions higher then we could see a lot of sites being re-worked and re-built very soon!
With the ongoing development of Web 2.0 I wonder what other factors will be coming into the search algorithm next year. An interesting article, thanks for posting.
that’s true- but what would be any eCommerce or flash websites
Great post ..keep up the good work..
So do people think that page load speed has become important this year – I’m not so sure. Isn’t activity the more important thing that Google has started to look at?
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December 8, 2009 at 1:39pm