Why I Don't Care About PageSpeed

And You Should Too

Remy Perona

Lead developer of WP Rocket at WP Media

 

      @remyperona

Who Wants a Fast Website?

Who Wants a Fast Website?

EVERYONE

How to Measure the Speed of My Website?

How to Measure the Speed of My Website?

Google PageSpeed Insights

The Issue

With PageSpeed

PageSpeed Doesn't Measure

The Loading Time

of Your Website

Good PageSpeed Score

QUICK WEBSITE

PageSpeed Score: 85

Loading Time:

3,16s

PageSpeed Score: 58

Loading Time:

596ms

"The PageSpeed score has no impact for your SEO.

For Google, the loading time of your website is important."

Joost De Valk - Yoast

"Even though the score is linked to the speed of the page, it is not entirely representative of the actual user experience"

The only important metric for your visitors is the

loading time

of your website!

Why use PageSpeed?

Why use PageSpeed?

Detect possible optimizations (with caution)

Why use PageSpeed?

Detect possible optimizations (with caution)

In addition to a loading time measurement tool (Pingdom Tools)

PageSpeed Suggestions

PageSpeed Suggestions

Enable Compression

Activate GZIP compression on your server (.htaccess, nginx.conf)

PageSpeed Suggestions

Enable Compression

Activate GZIP compression on your server (.htaccess, nginx.conf)

Leverage Browser Caching

Activate Expirations headers on your server (.htaccess, nginx.conf)

PageSpeed Suggestions

Enable Compression

Activate GZIP compression on your server (.htaccess, nginx.conf)

Leverage Browser Caching

Activate Expirations headers on your server (.htaccess, nginx.conf)

Avoid Landing Page Redirects

Minimize/Remove redirections to the final landing page

PageSpeed Suggestions

Minify Resources

Minify your static resources (Autoptimize, WP Rocket…)

PageSpeed Suggestions

Minify Resources

Minify your static resources (Autoptimize, WP Rocket…)

Reduce Server Response Time

Use a static cache (with a plugin) or server cache (Varnish, NGINX…)

PageSpeed Suggestions

Minify Resources

Minify your static resources (Autoptimize, WP Rocket…)

Reduce Server Response Time

Use a static cache (with a plugin) or server cache (Varnish, NGINX…)

Optimize Images

Use a solution to reduce images file size  (ImageOptim, Smush, Imagify…)

Following Those Suggestions

=

Better Loading Time

Doesn't Apply to External Resources Like Google fonts, Analytics, Ads, Tracking…

PageSpeed Suggestions

Eliminate Render-Blocking JavaScript and CSS

Load CSS and JavaScript files using defer/async solutions

!

Can cause display issues

Critical CSS might be different for each page

Insert critical CSS into the <head> tag of your pages

PageSpeed Suggestions

Prioritize Visible Content

!

Hard to implement in WordPress

Heavily dependent on Theme/Plugins

Structure Your HTML to load the critical, above-the-fold content first

Following Those Suggestions

=

(Possible) Improvement of the Perceived Loading Time

"Some of PageSpeed's recommendations take substantial effort to implement,

so you need to evaluate the cost of making changes vs. the benefit the rule would have on your page"

SUMMARY

SUMMARY

PageSpeed Score Doesn't Matter

SUMMARY

PageSpeed Score Doesn't Matter

Follow PageSpeed Suggestions With Caution

SUMMARY

PageSpeed Score Doesn't Matter

Focus on the Loading Time of Your Website

Follow PageSpeed Suggestions With Caution

Q/A

Ressources

Why I Don't Care About PageSpeed, And You Should Too

By Remy Perona

Why I Don't Care About PageSpeed, And You Should Too

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