Google PageSpeed Insights
Since 2018, the loading speed of a website has been one of the important Google SEO ranking factors. Slow pages are therefore penalized in the rankings on the SERPs. Let's just think about it ourselves: When we want to quickly search for information on our smartphone, we don't want to wait a long time for a page to load. It might even be that the Google Crawler completely ignores a page if it is not loaded within two seconds. However, with Google PageSpeed Insights, the search engine offers us a tool to check the loading time of a website. The so-called Core Web Vitals help with their data to see in which areas a website takes how long to load. PageSpeed generally refers to the speed of a webpage.
What is Google PageSpeed?
The online service PageSpeed Insights—as it is officially called—was introduced in 2011 at Google's in-house technology conference, Google I/O. The tool can be easily operated via the browser. After entering a URL, the webmaster receives information about each individual page of the website. They are categorized (low, medium, and high priority) to indicate whether the page has a short or long loading time and if optimization is necessary. The maximum score a subpage can achieve is up to 100 points. The subsequent report on the website's loading time provides not only a score but also recommendations for optimizing PageSpeed.
The results of the Core Web Vitals from Google PageSpeed Insights should be viewed with some caution as a credo for loading speed. On one hand, it is not absolutely necessary to achieve 100 points, which can also be quite difficult under certain circumstances. On the other hand, the tool recommends, for example, reducing image materials or disabling applications with JavaScript, as this leads to longer loading times. However, if these applications and images are important elements for the purpose of the website, it is less advisable to optimize the website speed and compromise on other areas of search engine optimization. For example, it might be less advisable to follow the recommendation to compress image material by up to 90% if the display on the website is insufficient and users can no longer correctly perceive the graphic elements.
How does Google PageSpeed Insights work?
The operation of the tool is extremely simple: You select the tool's page on the web. Then you just have to enter any website to be analyzed and run the calculations. Afterwards, a value between 0 and 100 is displayed. This value provides a rough initial assessment of the page loading speed. Thanks to color legends, you can quickly see how the site performs based on various data.
The following values, the so-called Core Web Vitals, are measured:
First Contentful Paint: This Core Web Vital indicates when the browser has rendered the first text or image, meaning when a potential visitor could interact with the first element.
Largest Contentful Paint: the Core Web Vital refers to the time when the largest element of the page has been rendered, thus accessible
Cumulative Layout Shift: this Core Web Vital measures unexpected layout shifts. This happens, for example, when an advertisement is suddenly placed between text, causing the original text to slip.
Total Blocking Time: Refers to the duration of the periods between First Contentful Paint and Time to Interactive. If this duration exceeds 50 milliseconds, the page is blocked.
You can also switch between mobile and desktop. That makes sense, because sometimes there are glaring differences between loading time on desktop and mobile.
The overview is followed by recommendations from Google PageSpeed Insights to improve load time in various areas. PageSpeed Insights also provides tips for best practice solutions to resolve issues. However, one should always check if this fits their own site and if the recommendations, as described above, are always so sensible.