Page Speed

How the Page Speed Report Help SEO

Much like other reports available in Google Search Console, users can use the Speed Report to check the performance of their site’s speed. The report is divided into 3 groups – namely, Slow, Average, and Fast. If they made this like the Index Coverage report, then it’s safe to believe that we’ll see the list of pages in each group while also enabling us to see and analyze issues with the listed pages. This helps us SEOs know which pages need our time and attention and how we can better optimize them. 

The Speed Report classifies URLs by speed and the issue that causes any slowdowns. To get a better sense of what type of optimization can be performed for a specific URL, the report links to the Page Speed Insight tool, which provides information on specific optimization opportunities.

About Site Speed Report

The Site Speed reports show how quickly users are able to see and interact with content. You can identify areas that need improvement, and then track the extent of those improvements.

The Site Speed reports measure three aspects of latency:

• Page-load time for a sample of pageviews on your site. You can view the data across different dimensions to see how quickly your pages loaded from a variety of perspectives (e.g., in different browsers, in different countries). Data is available in the Page Timings report.
• Execution speed or load time of any discrete hit, event, or user interaction that you want to track (e.g., how quickly images load, response time to button clicks). Data is available in the User Timings report.
• How quickly the browser parses the document and makes it available for user interaction. No additional configuration is required to see this data. Data is available in the Page Timings report, on the DOM Timings subtabs.

To see the Site Speed reports:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Navigate to your view.
3. Open Reports.
4. Select Behavior > Site Speed.

Page Timings report

The Page Timings report lets you perform detailed analysis of individual page performance. 

The report includes the following tabs and subtabs:

1. Explorer: Page data in the context of different primary and secondary dimensions

• Site Usage: Basic interaction metrics like pageviews and bounce rate

• Technical: Network and server metrics
• DOM Timings: Document-parsing metrics

2. Distribution: Timing buckets for different metrics
3. Map Overlay: Geographic data in the context of different primary and secondary dimensions

• Site Usage: Basic interaction metrics like pageviews and bounce rate
• Technical: Network and server metrics
• DOM Timings: Document-parsing metrics

Speed Suggestions report

Site Speed Suggestions are optimization tips tailored to your site. You can implement these tips to make your pages load faster. To see the suggested optimizations for your pages:

1. In Behavior > Site Speed > Speed Suggestions, click the link in the PageSpeed Suggestions column for the page you want to optimize. The Page Speed Insights page opens.
2. In the left-hand navigation, click the links for the suggestions that are specific to the improvement of your page. The suggestions explain why they’re relevant to your site, and how you can implement them.

Many web pages include dynamic content such as ads, which differ each time the page is loaded. As a result, the score and suggestions you see for your page in Analytics may differ slightly from what is displayed in the PageSpeed report.

Note: A score of 100 indicates that Analytics successfully analyzed the page, but has no recommendations for improvement. None in the score column indicates that an error occurred during analysis of the page. 

User Timings report

The User Timings report lets you perform detailed analysis of individual resource performance (e.g., images, videos, buttons). The report includes the following tabs:

1. Explorer: Resource data in the context of different primary and secondary dimensions
2. Distribution: Timing buckets for different metrics
3. Map Overlay: Geographic data in the context of different primary and secondary dimensions

Note: 

• Site speed tracking has no impact on bounce rate for your site. 
• Site speed can only be tracked from browsers that support the HTML5 Navigation Timing interface or have the Google Toolbar installed. Typically this includes: Chrome, Firefox 7 and above, Internet Explorer 9 and above, Android 4.0 browser and above, as well as earlier versions of Internet Explorer with the Google Toolbar installed.

Interpret Site Speed

Where to find the metrics, and what they mean

Page Timings report > Explorer & Map Overlay tabs > Site Usage subtab

• Avg Page Load Time : The average amount of time (in seconds) it takes that page to load, from initiation of the pageview (e.g., click on a page link) to load completion in the browser.
  
  Avg. Page Load Time consists of two components: 1) network and server time, and 2) browser time. The Technical section of the Explorer tab provides details about the network and server metrics. The remaining time is the browser overhead for parsing and executing the JavaScript and rendering the page.
• Pageviews : The number of times the page was viewed during the selected date range.
• Page Load Sample : The number of pageviews that were sampled to calculate the average page-load time.
• Bounce Rate : The percentage of views of a page where that page was the only one viewed in a session.
• % Exit : The percentage of views of a page where that page was the last page in a session.
• Page Value : The average value of the page or set of pages. Page Value = ((Transaction Revenue + Total Goal Value) / Unique Pageviews for the page or set of pages).

Page Timings report > Explorer & Map Overlay tabs > Technical subtab

• Pageviews : The number of times the page was viewed during the selected date range.
• Avg Page Load Time : The average amount of time (in seconds) it takes that page to load, from initiation of the pageview (e.g., click on a page link) to load completion in the browser.
  
  Avg. Page Load Time consists of two components: 1) network and server time, and 2) browser time. The Technical section of the Explorer tab provides details about the network and server metrics. The remaining time is the browser overhead for parsing and executing the JavaScript and rendering the page.
• Avg. Redirection Time : The time spent in redirection before fetching the page. If there are no redirects, the value for this metric is expected to be 0.
• Avg. Domain Lookup Time : The average amount of time spent in DNS lookup for the page
• Avg. Server Connection Time : The time needed for the user to connect to your server
• Avg. Server Response Time : The time for your server to respond to a user request, including the network time from the user’s location to your server
• Avg. Page Download Time : The time to download your page

Page Timings report > Explorer & Map Overlay tabs > DOM Timings subtab

• Pageviews : The number of times the page was viewed during the selected date range.
• Avg. Document Interactive Time : The average time (in seconds) that the browser takes to parse the document (DOMInteractive), including the network time from the user’s location to your server. At this time, the user can interact with the Document Object Model even though it is not fully loaded.
• Avg. Document Content Loaded Time : The average time (in seconds) that the browser takes to parse the document and execute deferred and parser-inserted scripts (DOMContentLoaded), including the network time from the user’s location to your server. Parsing of the document is finished, the Document Object Model is ready, but referenced style sheets, images, and subframes may not be finished loading. This event is often the starting point for javascript framework execution, e.g., JQuery’s onready() callback, etc.
• Avg Page Load Time : The average amount of time (in seconds) it takes that page to load, from initiation of the pageview (e.g., click on a page link) to load completion in the browser.
  
  Avg. Page Load Time consists of two components: 1) network and server time, and 2) browser time. The Technical section of the Explorer tab provides details about the network and server metrics. The remaining time is the browser overhead for parsing and executing the JavaScript and rendering the page.

User Timings report > Explorer & Map Overlay tabs

You see the following metrics by Timing Category, Timing Variable, or Timing Label (all of which you defined in your timing code).

• Avg. User Timing : The average time (in seconds) it takes for the timed code to execute.
• User Timing Sample : The number of samples taken.

Page Timings & User Timings reports > Distribution tab

This tab provides timing buckets so you can determine whether the bulk of your pages/resources loaded/executed within acceptable limits. To get the speed detail for a specific page or resource, you can drill down into the item in the Explorer tab, and then click the Distribution tab to see the distribution of load/execution times.

In speed analysis, the average doesn’t always provide an accurate accounting because a few outliers can skew that value. Being able to see the distribution of values provides a more accurate picture.

Insights and responses

You can use the Page Timings report to measure where load times for your pages are having a critical impact. For example, you might learn that the target audience for your site is located in a geographic area where the Internet connection speed is generally slower than what is optimal for your pages. Or you might learn that the load times for your pages vary widely in different browsers. With these insights, you can take steps to improve your site performance in a very targeted way. 

For example:

• For pages that show high load times in certain browsers, you can investigate browser issues, and deliver pages more streamlined for those browsers.
• If key geographic regions or ISPs are showing high load times, you can deliver alternate pages more suitable to lower bandwidth.
• If your landing pages show poor speeds, you can focus on improving the ones that have the most pageviews.
• If average load time is too high, you can determine the significance of the load time issue by exploring the spread across Page Load Time Buckets.

When you consider in which areas to increase speed, target the slowest speed metrics first (the ones with large values for load times). For example, if you have:

• High Avg. Redirection Time : Analyze whether the redirects are necessary. Also check sources to see if a specific referrer is causing high redirect latency.
• High Avg. Domain Lookup Time : Consider changing to a DNS provider that provides consistent and lower response times.
• High Avg. Server Response Time : Reduce backend processing time or place a server closer to users.
• High Avg. Page Download Time : Reduce your initial data size.