That Website Speed Test Is a Pile of Lies

March 30, 2023
Spotlight Branding

Stop us if you’ve heard this before:

You received an email saying your website speed is awful and that Google is actively penalizing your website because of it. The person sending you that email even gave you a big PDF of your test results.

And maybe with you being the enterprising skeptic you are went out and ran the same Google PageSpeed test for yourself. But when the results came in, you found that the person who emailed you wasn’t lying. What do you do now?

Pay thousands of dollars for a new website that performs better? Send a strongly worded email to your current webmaster accusing them of screwing you over? Or, just take a step back and breath.

Because while that email sender was being truthful by saying your website performed poorly on Google’s PageSpeed test, what they failed to inform you was that it doesn’t actually matter.

Instead, here is what matters (and what your website is likely already doing well):

1. Time to First Byte (TTFB)

This metric involves how long it takes for your website’s host to respond to the first, tiniest byte of data on your site. In other words, how long does it take for someone to see anything load onto your site. In general, this is within a few milliseconds.

2. Fully Loaded Time

How long does it take your site to fully load? Unless you’re uploading gigantic files directly to your website rather than embedding them from elsewhere, this also shouldn’t take too terribly long. However, it’s also contingent on the user’s internet speed and accessing device.

Here’s the most important thing to remember: Even Google’s own properties like YouTube fail the PageSpeed test. If it isn’t good enough for Google itself, it isn’t going to be vital for you.

In the end, you want to make sure your website loads quickly enough, and if it does so in just a couple of seconds, you’ll be fine.

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Spotlight Branding

Spotlight Branding is a content marketing and branding firm for lawyers and other professionals. Our goal is to help you create an online presence that positions you as a credible expert in your field, keeps you connected with your network in order to stay top of mind and increase referrals, and to become more visible online so prospects can find you!