Time for an impromptu rant. This morning, I heard that Google had begun factoring site speed into its search algorithm. This means that slower loading websites will suffer slightly in Google’s rankings compared to faster loading websites, although it is said to be only a very minor factor in Google’s algorithm. Nontheless, are Google right to do this? My opinion is that they are not.
The speed at which a website loads has no bearing whatsoever on the content of the website. So it seems Google are making a statement that, in general, websites should load faster. Of course, nobody wants a website to take a long time to load - it’s frustrating. But should Google’s ranking algorithm not focus purely on the actual content of websites?
What if I want to search Google for some kind of entertainment website - online games, for example. Such websites contain large amounts of Flash, which tends to increase a page’s file size substantially. Will this inclusion of site speed in Google’s algorithm not therefore mean that the search results become less relevant in this example? Slower loading pages will, after all, not rank as well as quicker loading websites.
In addition to entertainment websites, there is an issue with Flash and JavaScript in general. These are probably the two biggest offenders in terms of causing websites to load slowly. I would imagine that Google’s argument - and certainly the argument of many comment posters on articles I have read so far this morning - is that site speed is a usability issue. Essentially, this is not something that I would disagree with. However, the use of Flash and JavaScript is not always gratuitous. As all good interaction designers will know, JavaScript and, to a greater extent, Flash are two of the most powerful tools for enhancing usability on a website. So, although it is not always the case, in some cases a slower loading website will actually be just as usable - if not more so - than a faster loading website. Yet, with site speed now a factor in Google’s algorithm, such sites will presumably suffer in Google’s search rankings in comparison.
All that aside, it is now 2010 - almost everybody has broadband and connections are getting faster and faster. As web and media technologies progress, the total file size of websites is probably getting smaller, if anything. So, is site speed really a big issue? Big enough to make it worthwhile penalising slower loading websites in Google’s search results?
If site speed really is a big enough issue, then my suggestion would be for Google to make it an option for users to prioritise faster loading websites in the results of their search. A simple tick box would do the job. Users on mobile devices, or on slower connections, could then make use of this option, while other users would continue to receive accurate search results not influenced by factors irrelevant to websites’ content.
