Matt Cutts from Google gave a video interview last week discussing what changes lay ahead for Google for the new year.
According to Mr. Cutts, the most important new factor for SEO rank maybe the speed at which your site loads.
“We are thinking more and more that site speed should be a factor in search ranking.”
“Maybe its fair to say it you have a very fast site you should get a bonus or if you have an awfully slow site, maybe users don’t want that”
To see a video from Google on how to increase the load time of your sites check out this Google link.
Google also has a tool that you can download if you have FireFox called Page Speed to test the speed of your site.
I’m screwed 🙁
There are programs that can help speed up your site. Try WebCrusher
http://store.eSellerate.net/a.asp?c=0_SKU93334124126_AFL6749824628&at=
Why would Google want to do that
We could end up with websites that contain words only since we all know graphics and video could slow oad time
And what about comments. Some sites have so many comments that it slows loading
So take these two things out of websites, what does that do for the visitor’s experience?
If you got a dedicated server and a bit of dosh there’s nothing better than the website accelerator from Aptimize – I did a lot of research and testing for our company and its the best out there, Google and Microsoft use it.
If you’re on shared hosting then you have less options, depending on your CMS e.g. wordpress, joomla etc there are a few plugins and add-ons that will help increase web page speed. I run over 30 personal sites on wordpress (shared hosting) and have found the various plugins available offer some optimization but far less than what you can get with your site on dedicated. The other option is to get onto your hosting company and suggest that they put accelerators on their shared servers.
It’s smart. But then again, in 4 years everyone will be moving to FIOS so what’s the point?
Go to a website in Korea or Japan and normally sites load there in 10-30 seconds on a DSL connection. That’s because they have superior internet infrastructure and DSL there is like a dial up over here.
Now with all online videos, and HD, even DSL is starting to feel slow. So I think this is something that will correct itself once people move to FIOS.
The reason Google is pushing for it is because faster page load = more clicks on their ads.
The end result if this is implemented will take people back to the old trend of splash pages just to increase their search engine position since that is something heavily valued in today’s market place and as a result user experience will suffer. As search engine optimization and google page ranking in particular dictates so much of site design and development and is a demand an expectation of companies and clients, I hope that people understand this will have consequences of people being told to change their sites accordingly to take advantage of it, even if it is not helpful to users or is even a barrier.
Godaddy is sure to loose their ranking 🙂
Good post Mike.
Also hearing that Bing is looking into including the bounce rate time spent on the site — in other words, the time spent after clicking a Bing Search result and then hitting the back button and returning to Bing.
Seeing it as an indicator of site result quality.
Cheers, bcarr
It’s really hard for me to believe this! I guess that more than ranking higher if your site is extremely fast you’ll probably rank lower if your site is slower than the average.
Surf
Yes this is what Cutts is saying
huh.. funny thread :))