Is Google Page Speed Insights Accurate?

We all know from experience the importance of website speeds, especially when using a mobile device on a cellular network. With advances in technology, it’s more important than ever to provide a comfortable and streamlined experience, made easier by fast-loading, reliable websites.

There are tools like Google PageSpeed ​​Insights that can test and evaluate your website’s performance. While they can be useful, they don’t always give a real picture of a website’s performance, whether it is loading speed perspective or from a user experience perspective.

With a growing number of questions about website speed recently, especially regarding Google’s PageSpeed ​​Insights tool, let’s take a few minutes to discuss what these tests mean and how accurate are the results.

What is Google Page Speed Insights?

Google PageSpeed ​​Insights is one of the many Google’s tools which helps to measure and improve the performance of your website on desktop and mobile devices. First of all, PageSpeed ​​Insights gives you an overall assessment of page performance.

Google PageSpeed ​​Score is easily determined by Lighthouse, which is an open-source tool created by the Google team. Lighthouse helps to conduct various audits, including production audits. After performing a performance audit and evaluating various metrics, Lighthouse evaluates and determines a performance rating that is the same as the rating provided by Google PageSpeed.

Google PageSpeed ​​ratings are based on laboratory data, which clearly means that Google PageSpeed ​​Insights collects performance data in a controlled environment through Lighthouse. The simulation is performed using predefined equipment and network settings.

Google PageSpeed’s rating based on predefined conditions such as Internet connection does not reflect 100% of the actual user experience.

Is Google Page
Speed Insights Accurate?

Yes, Google PageSpeed ​​Insights is now powerful and accurate enough to measure the overall user experience on your website. Various metrics allow you to understand exactly how users interact with your website. Recent changes make this tool more reliable.

In November 2018, Google released PageSpeed ​​5.0. The new version starts to use the aforementioned Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) data set. It also began to use lighthouse audits. Then, in May 2020, Beacon 6.0 hit the digital world. New metrics were added, the same metrics you now see in the PageSpeed ​​Insights tool, reflecting overall performance and ease of use.

Therefore, we can say that PageSpeed ​​Score is reliable and you can trust the metrics to understand the performance of your website. Of course, you should follow the PageSpeed ​​Insights guide to improve your score in order to become even better. As the Google PageSpeed ​​Score is now considered very accurate, an increase in the score usually reflects a decrease in loading time.

Wait, does it mean that PageSpeed ​​Score does not reflect the speed of a website? Honest answer: It depends on the specific situation.

Relation between Page Speed & Google Score

So, the purpose is to measure the relationship between variables, load time and Google Page Speed ​​Insight Score. First, use a correlation formula to measure the relevance of 50 websites. These sites are from Wikipedia and Quantcast. The Pingdom tool is used to calculate page speed.

Here is the relevant formula:

The correlation equation used to understand the relationship between download speed and Google Page Speed ​​Insights. This may sound complicated, but it is not. There are many software packages that can be used to quickly calculate the correlation coefficient. For example, in Excel, you can calculate this value by entering the CORREL formula. If Excel is your main statistical tool, you can learn more about correlation in Excel.

4 Ways to Improve Google Page Speed Insights Score

1# Minimize your HTML

Minimizing the space occupied by your HTML code is another important factor in getting a good Google rating. Minimization is the process of removing or correcting unnecessary or duplicate data without affecting the way the browser displays HTML.

It includes code fixing, formatting, deleting unused codes, and code truncation (if applicable). With the amazing WordPress plugin options, you don’t need to be a programming genius to solve this problem.

One of the best tools for doing this is HTML Minify. You can download this plugin for free directly from your website and install it to your WordPress account in a few seconds. After installing the plug-in, you only need to perform a few steps and you will immediately notice the impact on your website. Minimize your coding today, and you will immediately see how it affects your analysis report.

2# Small Request Counts & Transfer Sizes

The more requests the browser loads the page, the more response resources the server returns, and the longer it takes to load the website. Minimize the number of requests required and reduce the size of resources.

There is no ideal number of requests or maximum size to consider, but Google recommends that you set these standards yourself through budget performance. Some specific goals may be related to the following:

• Maximum image size
• Number of web fonts used
• Number of external resources
• Script and image size

Setting a performance budget provides you with many standards that you must be responsible for. You can then decide whether to exclude or optimize resources to meet standard guidelines.

3# Avoid Multiple Page Redirects

When you want one URL to point to another URL, you can use redirection. When you move or delete pages on a website, you usually use them. Although there is usually no problem with redirects, they do introduce additional loading delays. The only way you can follow this recommendation is to ensure that you only use redirects when absolutely necessary.

4# Use Browser Caching

Browser caching works by “remembering” previously loaded resources so that you don’t have to reload them every time you visit. When site visitors land on a new page of your site, they don’t have to load all the data, such as logos and footers. This will greatly increase the speed of visiting your website.

Fortunately, there is a plugin. You don’t need to be a programming expert to do this. Attempt to use W3 Total Cache for WordPress site. It has more than 1 million active installations and is the most popular cache plugin. W3 Total Cache Cache Tool claims that it can increase your overall site performance by at least 10 times.

In addition, they claim (and confirm) that this plugin will help you get better results on the Google PageSpeed ​​tool. This tool will also help you minify HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, thereby saving up to 80% of bandwidth. Try now to use W3 Total Cache to speed up your website quickly and easily, even if you are new to programming.

The Bottom Line

After you spend countless days, weeks, and months building a new website, you need to keep every image, element, and icon at a top-notch level. However, this usually causes the website to run slower than Google recommends.

When people can click on Google again and select the next result, they don’t want to wait 10 seconds for their website to load. Use Google PageSpeed ​​Insights to see where the problem is, and then deal with it according to your suggestions. You should also shrink code, compress images, add browser caching, and implement AMP. Achieving 100% Google PageSpeed ​​Insights can provide the motivation your website needs to succeed.