Site Speed Now a Ranking Factor for Google. Encouraging Elitism?
Google announced today that they are now taking into account website speed as part of their search algorithm. On the whole, this is a good move as it encourages people to speed up their websites, however, it concerns me that this could encourage elitism.
This website, along with a couple of others I run, sit on a shared server at Hostgator. I’ve always been very happy with this service; it’s cheap, reliable and the support is always prompt. However, you get what you pay for. Shared hosting means your sharing a server with (usually) a heap of other websites. The more websites on a server, the more processing power required to serve those sites up to visitors and therefore the slower the website speed.
Of course, speed isn’t just about a fast server. There are plenty of elements website owners can optimise to improve website speed. But what if you’ve done all those things. What if the difference between you and the website ranking a position above you comes down to server speed?
Faster servers = better results
Search results are no longer about creating great content, they’re about who has the faster web server.
Couldn’t agree more!! On the money again Lukie
I almost fell over when I heard that they were adjusting their algorithm to make speed a factor in search ranking order.
I mean by doing that they are effectively deciding for everyone else that speed is an defining factor in if I choose to browse to a page. I think that is a little rich really, who are they to decide for everyone.
Why not just inform everyone and let the searcher decide if it is imporant to them. Like a red, amber and green traffic light type system or something.
I mean if a site with great content takes 3 seconds to as opposed to 1 second, I’d take the content every time. Don’t hide the content from me by pushing it down the rankings.
Let me chose.
Great post.
Cheers,
Paul
I agree with you Luke, its a tough one to stomach. I had an idea that they were going to implement this at some point, so I have taken some measures to keep speed up on my websites, but at the end of the day, this is quite unfair. Ultimately, this means that site relevancy could very well be outweighed by how deep our pockets are.
This has been talked about for ages, in fact Google first alluded it would start considering a focus on page/site speed about mid last year (2009).
The algorithm will not necessarily “punish” a site JUST because it is slow. However, if there are two similar pages vying for a particular position, the faster of the two will theoretically have an advantage.
And I’m all for that – so may websites use uncompressed images, or embed huge video files to auto play, or whatever. I looked at one person’s Twitter account page today and it was 1.5 meg. Ridiculous!
People have been lulled into a sense of complacency regarding file sizes/site speed, greatly because of broadband availability. In the days of the “lightening fast” 56k modems, page speed was a big focus.
That said, I don’t envisage a huge change in rankings merely based on site speed. But just maybe people should take a look at their website and trim the fat!
I’ll wait and see if it really makes as large a difference as people worry about — this is just one factor in HEAPS, as I’m sure you’re aware. I’d also reserve judgment until there’s some more investigation into how much server response times actually impact it, as distinct from the other onpage stuff you’ve mentioned.
Lots of shared hosts seem to be able to provide a good price without crippling everyone on the box. Quite a few of them will even help you move all your stuff over for you. Those hosts that choose not to make speed a priority will soon get the hint when they lose customers over it, and I think that’s great news for anyone who’s on shared hosting.
@Paul, I don’t have a problem with Google choosing to use this as a measure of ranking. A responsive, *relevant,* snappy site that doesn’t make me wait is exactly what I want.
I think I’ve read this somewhere that’s why it’s good to optimize, in my case wordpress cache plugins, to speed up the loading.
This is a bit of a generalization, Server speed might give you a little boost, but in the end there are some much larger ranking factors which are content based to make the statement “Search results are no longer about creating great content, they’re about who has the faster web server.” false.