Comments on: Should Page Speed Influence Google PageRank?

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 14:35:09 +0000

This is true people using google services are risking their site becoming slower as well.

By: Kien

Kien — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:49:11 +0000

slow performance needs to be defined - 1) is it the host serving the page 2) how the page was written HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT/ETC. or 3) both.

By: Rahul

Rahul — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:15:14 +0000

Yes - website speed should influence page rank. I hate slow websites, especially those with tons of useless images and scripts.

By: Sandeep Mahajan

Sandeep Mahajan — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:34:07 +0000

Is this just Google, who is worrying about the page speed? I don't think so. Who doesn't like spped? We always thought about our customers' first. How they will feel when they can surf around the site as quick as looking into their local folders. I think this will be the great lesson for those developers, who are just messy about their work/files/codes.

By: Michael Mullany

Michael Mullany — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:57:44 +0000

You are NOT correct sir. Very slow performance is a documented factor in adword quality ranking, not in SEO ranking.

By: Ulrich Voß

Ulrich Voß — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:42:33 +0000

My Blog is on Blogger.com and Google Analytics tells me that 51% of the web sites are faster. So perhaps Google should focus on the speed of their own properties first ...

By: Neal

Neal — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:08:20 +0000

if google starts checking speed, then they should check also power consumption..
that would mean that pages loaded with flash and white color backgroud, should be (for lowering carbon emitions) ranked lower

http://michkhoo.blogspot.com/2009/11/control-room-temperature-with-computer.html

By: Luca Simonetti

Luca Simonetti — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:31:11 +0000

We have direct peering to google backbone in the Zurich Swiss IX (Internet Exchange) with very fast access and speed.
This could help google to access faster your server contents and minimize latency.

Luca Simonetti
http://www.enginenetworks.net

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:41:17 +0000

The issue of search ranking and the apparent conflict with Google pushing product will get stickier as we go. Everybody knows they are the 800 pound guerrilla. Google changes something in page rank and it has ramifications throughout the internet. Should they be able to use this market power to capture share in other product areas?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:37:14 +0000

Just saw the comments that already touched on this point.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:35:52 +0000

What first came to mind when I read this story is that the speed of loading a page is heavily influenced by the source of ads that the page contains. See techcrunch for an example.

So, is this way to get websites to dump slow ad platforms in favor of faster (Google) ads?

By: Lucian Armasu

Lucian Armasu — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:29:45 +0000

You’re forgetting Google is launching SPDY – a way to make your websites faster. It’s probably a way to get people to use SPDY

By: Sarah Worsham

Sarah Worsham — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:02:03 +0000

It seems like you could implement a speed penalty based on the traffic a site receives - the more traffic, the faster your site better be or you see more of a penalty. This would allow smaller sites to be developed without having to worry so much about speed, but encourage investment in speed once a site gets big enough to support such improvements. A byproduct of this type of penalty would probably be sites having to monetize somehow once they had a bit of traffic.

I do like the idea of a faster web, but am not keen on a metric that may penalize the little guy.

By: Jason Lackey

Jason Lackey — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Hallelujah!

By: tom

tom — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:38:37 +0000

i would like to add to what ED is saying when i state that the tech media seems to be way out the ordinary when it comes to the issue of broadband speed. while the average user likes higher speeds it is very secondary to other factors such as coverage and price.

as an example i will give tons of unlocked iphone owners who never use the wifi link and use t-mobile. the better coverage and pricing far outweigh the speed benefits of 3G for these users. most people want good quality basic services.

perhaps it would make sense for google to lower page ranks on the very slowest sites. but it would be a disservice if they end up elevating sites for extreme speed when the ones down the list are ‘fast enough’. there should be an acceptable ‘lag’that means equal ratings.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:23:08 +0000

Two thoughts: First, if, as seems to be the consensus above, many slow downs are from in-page ads, isn’t Google essentially de-ranking sites that don’t run their ads? (Don’t be monopolistically evil!). Second, the trouble with ranking sites based on speed is that with the expected Google silence on their algorithm, the company will never know that’s what their misstep is. Without obvious feedback, don’t expect typical managers to respond to a problem they don’t know exists.