PageSpeed Tools Is Just One Measurement
But it’s important to understand how to use it and what other tools are available to evaluate your website’s speed performance. In our final installment on the New Plains MediaMedia Online Snapshot Report, we’ll review the Website grade for both desktop and mobile. Long story short, this is Google’s PageSpeed Tool (GPST). You’ll see that immediately when you click on any of the “Show How to Fix” under each item and then click on the link with information for that fix. You’ll go directly to the Resources on Google’s PageSpeed Tool website.
It’s also the backbone behind the latest offering from Think With Google — a mobile and desktop tool — that is being shared widely.
This is very important information, and website speed and usability is critical not only for SEO, but also keeping and converting customers.
HOWEVER, there is much more to the story and a few other tools to consider.
First, Google’s PageSpeed Tool Doesn’t Really Measure Speed
As Lucy Beer of WPRocket summarizes so succinctly: Your Google PageSpeed score does not matter . . . [GPST] does not even measure the loading time of your site . . . it’s one of several tools . . . Do not blindly trust Google PageSpeed or take it at face value.”
Google pretty much admits this in GPST’s Overview.
Your website speed is dependent on the network your user is on, which can’t be easily duplicated remotely. GPST only measures three areas: “the server configuration, the HTML structure of a page, and its use of external resources such as images, JavaScript, and CSS.” So, it looks at how your server and website code are organized, which will ultimately impact speed. “Implementing the suggestions should improve the relative performance of the page,” according to GPST. More than a few of their recommendations, however, will likely conflict with the user needs for your website (not to mention Google Analytics, one of those external resources).
Second, Get Another Opinion
There are several popular sites for measuring speed that should be used in conjunction with GPST. Here’s some of the best ones we found.
WebPageTest
Technical heaven for page speed if you really want to get into the nitty gritty. Originally developed by AOL, this free tool was open sourced in 2008 and is supported by Google and the developer community. It will give you the most detailed “waterfall” representation of how each element of your website loads and the most detailed instructions, including a Time To First Byte (TTFB) for when your server responds. WebPageTest has the widest range of possible test locations of the tools listed here, including Lincoln, Neb.
GTMetrix
A free tool from managed hosting provider GT.net and includes Yahoo’s YSlow measurement in addtion to repackaging GPST. They have a very nice compare feature to check your website’s speed versus your competitors, which can help evaluate if your SEO challenge is really your website speed. This is generally the friendliest of scores and measures time from Vancouver, BC.
Pingdom Website Speed Test
Pingdom is a Sweden-based web performance company that has worked for over 700,000 users in 200 countries since it’s start in 2007, including some of the top names in digital-first companies. Pingdom’s Website Speed Test gives you three U.S. locations to test from: New York City, Dallas and San Jose. Their reports cover the same ground as the others, with some additional breakdowns, including “Content Size by Content Type” and “Requests by Content Type” that graphically quickly point out the top resource hogs.
Third, Image Size is Likely Your Worst Offender
The web loves images (think Google’s StreetView or Facebook’s Instagram), but they are likely the biggest resource hogs when your website loads. Often skipped and attempted halfway is optimizing your images for the web. There’s a few things to keep in mind with images.
Pick the Best File Format
GTMetrix recommends the PNG file format over the GIF format for most uses because of it’s wide adoption across browsers. “Use GIFs for very small or simple graphics (e.g. less than 10×10 pixels, or a color palette of less than 3 colors) and for images which contain animation.” For photos, use the JPEG file format. The BMP and TIFF formats are not recommended for web use.
Size Your Image Files Correctly
Make sure your images are sized exactly for their use on your website and that they don’t ask HTML or CSS code to resize it for you. This will put a further draw on browser resources and slow your page load speed.
Compress those Images
Your biggest save is compression, actually reducing the file size of the images in question. If you have image-editing applications like Adobe Photoshop, you can select Save For Web to do this. Free online tools include Optimizilla and Image Optimizer.
