Technology: Google adds loading speed to ranking criteria

According to Experian Hitwise, 87% of UK internet traffic is channelled through www.google.co.uk. With such dominance, any changes announced by the US-based search giant are worth noting by brokers keen to enhance their web presences.

At the beginning of April, Google announced that it was adding site loading speed to its ranking criteria, meaning that faster-loading web pages stand a better chance of a high position on Google's search results pages. The company said on its official blog: "Faster sites create happy users and we've seen in our internal studies that, when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there."

The technology firm stressed that, so far, the algorithm has only changed for www.google.com. However, it would be naive to believe the company is not also looking at rolling out the alteration to the UK's page.

Anthony Sharot, search director at Market Appeal, a search engine optimisation company that also offers pay-per-click advertising and web analytics skills, believes that the time taken to load a web page is a growing issue. He said: "People don't change even if web technology does; anything over two seconds and they begin to get frustrated."

No accident
Sharot noted that website loading speed has been a part of PPC scoring for a while and that Google's changes have ramifications for the UK. He said: "Things don't get into Google accidentally: it shows that, very soon, speed will be a serious issue. Ignore it at your peril."

Brokers can adapt without spending large amounts of money, as Sharot highlights: "Optimising images for web display is very important because they are often the biggest piece of data on a page. Slow adverts can also be a problem, especially if they are coded to load before your actual content."

When looking at improving speed, brokers should not lose sight of the crucial factor of relevance if they are to appear as high in the page rankings as possible. Sharot, who has worked with clients in insurance, says there are steps every broker should take such as using accurate title tags and interesting meta-descriptions. (If you don't know, Google displays title tags in large, blue text and meta-descriptions in black below the title tag. In essence, title tags get websites high up the page and meta-descriptions help them stand out.)

Sharot also recommends using keywords a minimum of once in the body text of a page, alongside original content refreshed at least weekly. Link building is also important, although this often requires the services of a specialist.

Loading speed and search terms are the big noise from Google today, though brokers must revisit their websites continually to ensure that they are optimised to appear as high in the rankings as possible. Search engine technology evolves constantly, so must websites.

Free website speed checkers
Page Speed: an open source plug-in for Firefox and Firebug that evaluates
the performance of web pages and gives suggestions for improvement.

YSlow: a free tool from Yahoo! that suggests ways to improve website speed.

WebPagetest: shows a waterfall view of your pages' load performance as
well as an optimisation checklist.

Google Webmaster Tools: Click on ‘Labs' and then ‘Site Performance' to
show the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world.

Source: Amit Singhal, Google fellow and Matt Cutts, principal engineer,
Google search quality team

Source: PB – May 2010