Is Google going to rank speed?
Monday, December 28th, 2009Google has always been keen on speed. Their minimalist approach to the design their site has less to do with aesthetics and more to do squeezing out every little ounce of speed in getting you a search result. And now they are starting to hint at using speed to help rank your page.
According to WebProNews Google is looking at using page load time as a factor in their page ranking system.
What does this mean to the average site owner? Not too much today as they haven’t implemented this practice yet. But, it does mean site owners update their site, they should think about updating with an eye towards page load times. Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Instead of multiple CSS files, condense them into one list reducing the number of files that need to load prior to page presentation.
- Clean up your CSS files. Many times CSS files get added to over time. For new page elements, we add new CSS code, but then forget to remove unused code. Take a look at your CSS file and remove any unused code.
- Keep Javascript to a minimum. Javascript is great, it allows us to do some great things. But, just like CSS, keeping file calls to a minimum is important to speeding up your page load time, so combining javascript files whenever possible.
- Compression. If your sever is capable, the use of gzip file compression will shrink the actual file size, making it faster to transfer.
- Optimize our images. Use a good image optimization tool like Fireworks or Photoshop and choose the best file type (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.) for your images.
These are just a few tips. Google has some great resources on things to consider or contact us, we would be happy to work with to speed up your site.