Does website loading speed affect SEO? After many discussions, Hamster found the answer to this question. The truth is that the search engine algorithm uses many factors to rank websites, and yes, speed is one of them.
Since Google can measure the exact loading time, this metric may reduce website relevance in search engine rankings. And now SEO is taking it to the next level: the drop in speed directly affects the number of visitors as in the modern world people are extremely unwilling to wait forever for the page to load. People don’t know the exact loading time, but they can intuitively estimate the website’s speed. Website visitors have no patience to wait for the page to load if the process takes more than 5 seconds.
In the latest Google Speed Update, Google announced changes regarding mobile phones. From July 2018, all pages that take more than 3 seconds to load are omitted from search results. In order to avoid this, you need to check your page loading speed and, if needed, find the best way to speed it up.
So, how to check the website loading speed?
In this article, Hamster presents the best tools for testing the website loading speed, all you have to do is choose the service that suits you the best. So ultimately it’s up to you to find those weights and levers that will pull your website from the bottom of the search results list.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Pingdom Tools
Gtmetrix.com
Uptrends.com
Web Page Test
Google PageSpeed Insights
This tool is the most popular one among website owners. You can check the loading time of different stages of a particular webpage.
Key features of the tool:
– provides speed score on a 100-point scale. The minimum reasonable loading rate is 90%;
– generates a report that shows the content loading speed, displays the time between the request and response of the page;
– checks loading speed in 3G connection conditions;
– provides recommendations for page optimization.
Why is this tool one of the best? First of all, it’s free of charge. It’s a convenient way to determine which part of your website could be improved.
Pingdom Tools
This tool analyzes more than 70 factors of the website, and one of them is page loading speed. The key feature of this service is the region selection function. It helps you to see the loading speed from different servers on different continents. It is quite useful if your target market is outside of your country.
The report provides detailed information on each of the requests to the servers. This tool enables you to determine what exactly slows down data loading.
Pingdom tool allows you to select a region, browser, and device to simulate an accurate request and measure loading speed. You can detect errors in caching and collect data for each download. Users are provided with information regarding different types of content that affects page loading. Hamster has prepared a detailed tutorial on how to read the results of this tool. Check it out here: https://www.hostens.com/knowledgebase/website-monitoring-tool-pingdom/
Gtmetrix.com
This tool is functional, easy to use, convenient, and provides a complete picture of the website’s performance. Gtmetrix displays detailed information and stores checks’ history, which allows you to compare the dynamics of changes.
The main advantages of the GTmetrix tool:
– provides the possibility to select a geographic location;
– takes a video of the download process;
– includes Google PageSpeed Insights and YSlow analysis;
– shows recommendations on how to speed up the download process.
The main disadvantage is that the free version of this tool comes with limited functionality. It is better to purchase a tool with a wide range of options for a comprehensive, detailed check of the site’s loading speed.
Uptrends.com
The tool offers many different settings from the very beginning: checking the site loading speed on mobile devices or desktop computers, selecting the screen extension or gadget model, setting the bandwidth in the Internet connection, choosing the browser and the city from which the site is accessed etc.
Like Gtmetrix, it also shows the score from Google PageSpeed Insights and analyzes the content of a web resource, and displays information in the form of graphs and tables.
Web Page Test
Just like with Uptrends, during the Web Page Test’s initial setup, you can select geolocation, browser, and device to simulate the request.
The tool runs three tests and compares the number of hits. You check how the cache system works as data is collected from all three tests.
The main feature saves screenshots and shows which group of requests took the most time to load.
