The Often Overlooked SEO Factor: Time and Speed

It isn’t just about key words and linking sites.

Search engines like to be fast. They like to display results quickly; some search engines even display how long it takes to display the search results (my last search was done in .25 seconds). Search engines also like to index websites quickly. In fact, if it takes too long for a page on your website to load a search engine may skip to the next one. A search engine won’t wait more than a second or two ��" humans won’t hang around much longer than that.

There are a number of things that can affect the time it takes for a webpage to load:

• Images - make sure graphics on your website are optimized to load as quickly as possible and still maintain the visual quality you need. Any animation or movies should also be optimized so to not increase the time it takes to display the web page.
• Coding - the way your page was coded may have an impact on the time it takes for your web page to load. Hand coded pages that rely on cascading style sheets to present the layout are often quicker than pages created using graphical “WYSIWYG” editors or templates that may use a lot of unnecessary code.
• Scripts - The use of certain scripts on your website may increase the time it takes for your website to load. Be careful if you use scripts for analytics or sharing content that those scripts don’t take too long to execute.
• Server Speed - Having a quality web server will help with your page load times, as well as the load that server is required to handle. If you use a “shared” hosting program, there may be other websites on the server that make your web pages slower.
• Network Speed - A number of things can come into play here: routers, switches, access to high bandwidth providers. A central location in relatively close proximity to the “internet backbone” is recommended.