Google Page Ranking now taking into account Site Speed
Google Page Ranking now taking into account Site Speed
2010 is the year of the quickest site wins!
Is your page too long? Is there too many high resolution images? Do you even know your average page load time? Is the site heavy in javascript or a pure Flash site?
These are questions (and this is not the exhaustive list) that need to be answered when looking at your internet strategy for 2010 (if you’ve already had it signed off then go back to the board and grovel for more funding to optimise).
Natural Traffic History
Since I’ve started working in the internet industry we’ve always been keen on driving traffic to sites. In some cases people haven’t cared where the traffic has come from – only that they can show an increased in visitors, visits and pageviews to the board. Tactics like buying links, building microsites, sponsored keywords (PPC), social media and on-site content optimisation (using keywords from offsite and onsite search) have been applied and resulting increases in traffic and conversion have been appropriately tracked.
Now in 2010 Google is changing the game plan. We’re all used to changes in the Google algorithm and whilst the exact changes are kept secret we, as a community, share our learning via forums and micro-blogging. How is Google’s approach to site speed going to be a) measured and b) benchmarked?
AT Internet – Observer Tool
Most analytics solutions have been tailored to look at the site effectiveness. They look at where the traffic is coming from, what is happening on the site and its the analyst’s job to turn those numbers into actionable insight. The latest innovations from Omniture and WebTrends (two of the biggest players) have been around segmentation, social media and insight delivery. I’ve not heard much from server performance monitoring – as this sector of the measurement toolbox has typically been managed by tools like Site Confidence and Gomez.
AT Internet provide a server performance monitoring tool which in a recent benchmark study; has recently shown that the UK as a whole does very well in Site Availability and Site Response Times.
Germany is quickest on the block at the moment when looking at the major countries around Europe. However, when you look at site availability Germany falls into fourth position!! 99.57% of UK sites passed all the Observer tests without error, France was in second place at 99.37%, Spain in third place with 99.08% and Germany in fourth at 98.90%.
However, where we in the UK could improve is on page load times. This goes back to the original paragraph of this blog – an analysis of page content, digital assets and javascript needs to happen and needs to happen NOW in order to maintain your SERP position. If your page takes more than 5 seconds to load then just imagine how frustrated you are when you’re buying that latest CD and it takes too long to load of download the preview track. We’re in an age where instant information is the way to do business and purchase goods. If you expect more from sites you shop on or use – then why should you ignore this on sites you manage or measure?
Site Speed Optimisation
Reading other blogs has turned up a new acronym on the block. We’re all familiar with SEO, PPC, GWO, MVT and now there is SSO (Site Speed Optimisation). Not sure who coined the phrase but the link takes you to the first blog post I’ve seen it mentioned.
Rather snappy title for the odd presentation or dashboard section if you ask me.
Conclusion
With these benchmarks in mind - DO YOU KNOW HOW YOUR SITE COMPARES? 
I’d also like to point out that this metric has historically remained with IT as monitoring of the servers tends to be their domain. However, this is no longer the case. We, as web analysts, need historically internal figures, sector/industry benchmarks and contingency plans in place for optimising!
Get this in your dashboard as soon as possible and if you’ve got internal wikis or blogs then tell your report owners that this is something is no longer IT this is marketing and sales’ problem now!
Disclaimer:
TargetStone are AT Internet ’s first UK partner and is proud to offer implementation and consultancy services.
Related Links:
AT Internet – Server Performance Monitoring – no longer a nice to have – its a MUST HAVE
Search Engine Journal – Site Speed may Affect your Google Page Ranking
Web Pro News – Google: Page Speed May become a Ranking Factor in 2010
eConsultancy – The Importance of Uptime
Web Pro News – Interview with Matt Cutts
Thanks for the post Miles. Indeed, too many marketers are overlooking the impact of server response and page load times on the customer experience and hence conversion. This is why Observer has been fully integrated into our web analytics suite to ensure that:
a) the impact of site performance issues on traffic, conversion and retention can be easily identified and,
b) the impact of traffic generation campaigns on server availability and response times can also be monitored and managed at the click of a button.
With email and SMS notifications available, Observer ensures that your site is constantly delivering a great user experience. For more details: http://en.atinternet.com/Products/Observer.aspx
AT Internet
Online Intelligence Solutions
Walid,
Always happy to write about a tool that makes sense in our competitive industry. Marketeers are unlikely to be aware YET that server performance impacts their jobs yet and I’ve rarely seen it brought up in management meetings.
This is the new age of internet strategy dawning alongside the importance of offsite content and community.
Miles
Fascinating stuff – any reason why Spain is slower than the other countries? do servers take siestas too perhaps? I’ve seen from experience how some marketers are tempted to dump as many products and eye-catching (reource heavy) flash animations on their homepage / landing pages, but it’s clear that this can be counter-productive.
From a customer centric point of view, too, it’s just bad customer service – it’s the equivalent of going to Tescos and finding they’ve shut half their tills down on a Saturday afternoon, leaving all their customers to queue unnecessarily.
Maybe with the purchase of Omniture Adobe will look at the WEIGHT of Flash pages and applications… Must admit not to have seen a pure flash site for sometime.
Flash players that play automatically are bloody annoying and I’m wondering about their effectiveness in engagement metrics.
Thanks for the comment
Miles
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Great post! High-level metrics by country are interesting but in the end I think it comes down to individual sites and individual pages. Performance is a very complex beast, and takes solid engineering principles and expertise to do it well. Some areas to keep in mind:
- Potential delays due to loading of files not hosted on your system. For example, remote images, pixels used for usage tracking, etc.
- Potential delays due to oading of JavaScript files, especially in the new world of Ajax and Ajax frameworks. I have seen performance degradation with complex use of frameworks such as Dojo on certain browsers (*cough* IE6 *cough*) for example
- There are some very sophisticated caching capabilities available today using solutions such as Akamai and WebSphere DynaCache. You will need to analyze your site to determine where and to what extent solutions like these can have an impact. The impact can be significant, though.
Hmm that’s amazing but honestly i have a hard time figuring it… I’m wondering what others have to say….