Google has made speed its watchword because it's a Web company and Web services still have trouble keeping up with software that runs locally. To make the Web experience better, Google and its Web peers like Mozilla have been tuning their JavaScript engines over the past few years and pursuing speed gains anywhere they can be found. The search giant has also pushed for faster Internet connectivity, through lobbying and ultra-fast broadband tests in a few communities. Its goal is to make Web page load times cease to be noticeable.
We're not there yet. Web page bloat is still a problem. Unpredictable network conditions continue to be a fact of life online, particularly on mobile networks, so it's still advisable to optimize Web pages for rapid loading.
Two years ago, Google released a browser extension called Page Speed to help Web developers and publisher evaluate Web page performance. It performs tests on Web pages to identify potential slowdowns. With leaner Web pages, site owners can expect happier users and better engagement, or so the theory goes.
Google's speed obsession remains ongoing. Last year, the company released an Apache module called mod_pagespeedthat rewrites the Web pages it serves to load faster. This year, Page Speed was offered as an API, so that developers could integrate performance analysis testing into their workflows.
The most recent manifestation of Google's fixation on speed is thePage Speed Service, an online service that accelerates web page load times.
"To use the service, you need to sign up and point your site's DNS entry to Google," said Google engineering manager Ram Ramani in a blog post. "Page Speed Service fetches content from your servers, rewrites your pages by applying Web performance best practices, and serves them to end users via Google's servers across the globe. Your users will continue to access your site just as they did before, only with faster load times."
According to Ramani, Google has seen speed improvements ranging from 25% to 60%.
Initially, Page Speed Service is being offered to a limited set of website owners at no charge. However, it will be a fee-based service when it's made widely available later this year. Those interested in access can request admission through a Google Web form.
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So should we call it Panda 2 ???
Interesting post Google declared war many times to provide better results to their user and this is another great step toward user care. Website load time is very important for every website (user point of view) and now also as search engine point of view. Google always prefer user friendly things.
Yes user experience is the first of priory of Google search service, so web pages with too much slow speed causes bad user experience and search engines don't like to rank those posts.
Great stuff here! Always good to see that optimized sites have preference! I remember the old marquee commands that slowed the whole use experience down...LOL San Antonio Web Design
With with the big G on this. Nothing wrong with pushing for better faster service for us all.
Had tested this service when Google released a post on this service on their official blog. The results showed a scope of over 50% improvement. I have signed up for the service & waiting for the acknowledgement. Need to check how it functions in real time.
As google has declared war against slow web pages. So it will be more difficult for business marketing online and to show own website in top results. Before organisations have to taken care about keywords and content with SEO techniques but now they have also to take care about web page speed otherwise their rank can be goes down. social bookmarking service
Google will take over the world one day I wasn't aware of the feature it mentioned about testing the speed for web developers. That's definitely a plus in my book (No Pun intended). Angel New Idea Web
Great, it's nice to see someone looking after the web and giving us all a better experience (whether it's for their own benefit or not). Even some of the newer phones still struggle to load pages.
We all knew this was coming as the Google algorithms have struggled to find new ways to highlight the sites that offer the best user experience. Page load time has become a crucial factor in your sites design due to the increasing use of smart phones for browsing where the data rates can be quite low. Thanks for mentioning the Chrome extension, I have now added this and will have to test my sites igor