In an announcement on Monday Google said the report was now rolling out publicly to all Search Console users.
The Speed report automatically buckets groups of similar URLs into Fast, Moderate and Slow categories. It’s designed to help quickly identify sections of websites with speed performance issues, which can be difficult on large websites containing many pages.
The data is based on the Chrome user experience report.
Image source: Google
The report classifies URLs by speed and performance issues, and you can drill down to diagnose and address issues causing slowdowns.
The report links to the Page Speed Insights Tool which provides detailed information for dealing with specific optimization issues.
Google’s advice is to use the report for monitoring performance over time and also for tracking fixes.
“If you fix an issue, use the report to track whether users experienced a performance improvement when browsing the fixed version of your website.“
You can also gain insights into how your site is performing by checking moderate and fast buckets to see what types of URLs are performing better.
Google describes the Speed report as “experimental”, with ongoing iterations and improvements planned.
What does Google say about speed?
Google Webmaster Trends Analysts John Mueller and Martin Splitt answered questions on site speed, tools and metrics in the latest edition of #AskGoogleWebmasters on 30 October.
A core message from the session was not to get too hung up on the numbers in test results. Google doesn’t have an ideal page speed threshold as such, Splitt said, webmasters should just “make sites fast for users”.
Google has multiple tools to assess speed and performance. Mueller’s advice was to get the data from the different tools and identify the low-hanging fruit - the easy fixes to give your page a speed bump.
Watch the full #AskGoogleWebmasters episode for further details, including a discussion also about which speed tool and metrics to use.
Speed is important both as a ranking factor and for your user experience and conversions, so it’s important to make sure your site is performing well.
See our Wordtracker case study on how we improved our site speeds using the Page Insights Tool.
