Google: Don’t Worry Too Much About Page Speed

I see so many SEOs always cite the page speed of a site when it comes to why a site may not rank that well. Truth is, from what I understand, the only way page speed impacts a site’s rankings in Google is if the site is unbearably slow. If your site is a drop faster than the next, it won’t rank a drop higher than the next. But if your site is incredibly slow, Google may demote the site.

So it is more of a penalty than a ranking boost, from what I understand.

In fact, John Mueller recently had me questioning if Google even used page speed as a ranking factor anymore. And as you may remember, your mobile page speed isn’t counted, it is your desktop page speed if anything.

Yesterday, Gary Illyes from Google told a webmaster not to “worry about it too much,” when it comes to page speed. He said on Twitter:

But I am not going to do anything about it until we launch our new design. Just like I did a few weeks ago when I launched the new RustyBrick design which is super fast.

I really think SEOs spend too much time focusing on page speed. Yes, speeding up your site by a second of load time will have drastic positive impacts on conversions. But for a ranking factor, I would not go mad over it.

Source: Seroundtable.

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.