Travel sites are poor at it; Google may start valuing it. Problem?
November 16, 2009
Neither of these is hot off the press, but it is worth putting them side by side.
- Top travel sites show poor load times [Travolution]
- Site speed: Google's next ranking factor [Search Engine Land]
The latter refers to organic search results - i.e. the 'proper' results, not the paid-for slots right at the top or over at the side.
Big deal? Well, Google only said they may start using site speed, and Search Engine Land goes on to say:
If I had to guess, page speed would not be a tremendously weighed factor, unless the site takes 90 seconds to load
...and the worst load time in the Gomez study that Travolution reported was 30 seconds. So this isn't going to bring anybody's business down.
But every little helps, and a quick load time is important regardless of SEO impact.
For those who want to improve, econsultancy wrote a quick guide to some of the issues that impact load time in the wake of the Google story.
Nathan Midgley
