How the Speed of Your Mobile Website Affects Your Search Engine Ranking
When a webpage takes too long to load, it slows down the internet. Google considers this a major problem. That’s why in 2010, Google announced that they would start ranking websites based on how long it took webpages to load. Today, in addition to Meta title and Meta descriptions, Google considers page load time as one of the biggest factors for search engine ranking.
Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm
On April of this year Google began ranking websites based on their mobile responsiveness. Currently, the speed that mobile pages load doesn’t impact where you place in the search engines. However, that is expected to change in the next few months.
Within the next few months Google is changing its mobile-friendly algorithm to look more closely at the speed of mobile pages.
The numbers don’t lie
- The ten highest ranking websites load in 1.16 seconds
- The ten highest ranking mobile sites load in 1.10 seconds
- The top thirty highest ranking websites load in 1.20 seconds
- The top thirty mobile websites load in 1.17 seconds
Today, approximately fifty percent of internet users expect a website to load in just two seconds or less. These users quickly lose interest in a website that has not loaded in as little as three seconds. Studies have shown that bringing a website with an eight second load time down to a five second load time generates up to 18 percent increase in page values and page views.
Google’s measurements are based on how long it takes from the time a user requests a page to when that page is fully loaded. Google understands that web designers have no control over external factors such as wireless connection or the user’s device. This is why they only consider network independent factors in their ranking.
The speed at which a webpage loads is important to the user’s experience. This is especially true for mobile users. A page that is quick to load will always beat out a slow loading page.
If your website takes too long to load then you are already losing visitors. These lost visitors can equate to a lot of lost business. Alter Impact understands how important it is for people to find your website. We can help you create a fully optimized mobile-friendly website. Please contact us for details.
