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.