The Truth About Google PageSpeed Insights
If you’re a Web Designer, Developer, or the owner of a website, you’ve probably heard of Google PageSpeed Insights. In Google’s own words, “PageSpeed Insights analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster.” It’s a useful tool and does decent job of giving actionable steps to speed up the site, but it’s not perfect.
This tool can be very misleading to non-technical users. There have been instances where a random company will send our clients a link to this tool and tell them how slow their website is. This is a huge problem because PageSpeed Insights does a poor job when it comes to it’s scoring system.
Let’s take a look at a reputable website www.bbcamerica.com. If you open this link on you’re phone you will notice that the site loads at a decent speed. But what does PageSpeed Insights think about this mobile version? On Nov. 5th 2019, I ran a test. The page scored one out of one hundred (1/100)! Maybe this is just a fluke right? What does BBC America know about making a fast website?
If we’re going to put this to rest, we need to test a company that we know will get it right. Let’s test the Microsoft News Center website. There is no way they would have a slow website, right? On Nov. 5th 2019, Microsoft News Center scores a 34/100 on mobile.
So what is happening here? Well the truth is your score doesn’t really matter, what’s important is WHY you got that score. Most of the time your low score comes from missed “Opportunities” that help your page load faster. The most common reasons are “Serve images in next-gen formats, Defer offscreen images, and Eliminate render-blocking resources”
Serve images in next-gen formats has got to be the worst advice this program gives. The three next-gen formats available right now are JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP. JPEG 2000 and XR should not be used. Less than 15% of usage is conducted on a browser that supports these formats. WebP has been gaining traction in the last year and now about 80% of usage is conducted on bowsers that support it. While WebP might sound better, it still means one out of five users won’t be able to see the image on their device without a fall back image. Also, about 32% of the world’s websites use the WordPress platform, which doesn’t yet support this file type. This means you can’t use it without a third party plugin. So until WordPress starts supporting it, we’ll stick to well optimized JPEG’s.
Deferring offscreen images is one of the more controversial ones and while it’s probably the easiest to implement. It has a great impact on speed, but it’s not without faults. To do this simply use “lazy loading” for your images. Lazy loading loads images “below the fold” as you scroll to them, so the page loads faster. The problem is that if a user scrolls down the page fast enough they will see the page without those images loaded. This can cause the site to look like it’s broken or not working right. The goal of every website is the serve it’s users, NOT the robots.
Last but not least, Eliminate render-blocking resources. This suggestion is similar to deferring offscreen images. If there is JavaScript or CSS that is only needed “below the fold”, you can speed up your site by loading it after the content above the fold is showing. Because these files are so small this one actually makes sense. The files will most likely finish loading before the user can scroll very far. It also means this “fix” will have the least impact on page speed as these files already load quickly. Still, I’d say it’s worth it. If you have a WordPress site, we recommend WP Rocket, or if you want a free plugin try out Autoptimize.
The point is, don’t worry about what score your site receives. Open up your browser and test the page speed yourself: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
If your site is loading slowly, it’s most likely those HUGE JPEG’s or PNG’s you’re using, or your internet is just slow. If you know these aren’t the problem and you’d like your page to load a second or more faster, talk to a web professional. Making improvements based on PageSpeed Insights results may be helpful, but you may need a different approach outside the scope of what Google’s robots can measure.