Google doesn’t officially penalise slow sites

When Google announced that page speed was a ranking factor, people in the SEO industry have always blamed rankings on the speed of their site. Google provided a testing tool which people could use to check how fast their pages loaded, and many people have obsessed over the speed ever since. It is a well-known fact that page speed is important, but how important is it really? You won’t be kicked out of the Google index if you have a slow site and you won’t be penalised. However, you might not rank as highly as a competitor if all other factors are equal. This is when it can become important.

Tedster from Google has said that you should be more concerned about your users’ experience rather than the GoogleBot, and how speed affects them. He explained:

“I’d say that visitors are punishing slow sites much more than Google’s algorithm ever will. So improve your speed for you visitors’ sake and your business will improve. Even more, when visitors like your site, they are more likely to help you promote it on their own and your links and mentions around the web will grow, too, and that REALLY helps.”

This is obviously a good thing to know and will help us with ranking websites. As we know, page speed is important and if all other factors are equal then it may come into play, but you will never be removed from Google or filtered/penalised for having a “slow” site. The best thing to remember is if your website is quick enough for humans, on all browsers and operating systems, then you should be quick enough for Google too.

Authors: Rob Bromilow and Kenneth Berkley