Even significant speed improvements may only have a subtle impact on visibility
John warns users not to expect significant rises in visibility from speed improvements alone. This is true even if the speed goes from very slow to very fast in a short space of time. Given the complexity of Google’s algorithms, changes that affect page speed in isolation are likely to have a much more subtle impact on visibility.
SEO improvements based on CWV metrics take about a month to show results
Google’s Core Web Vitals look at data that is delayed by around 28 days. This means that any significant page speed improvements you make on your website will typically take about a month to show up in the search results.
Technical SEO factors also contribute to content quality determinations in Google
John is keen to clarify that both technical SEO and content quality are extremely important. When it comes to the quality of content, Google is looking at more than just the text on a page. Additional factors ranging from page design to speed can also have an impact on how Google determines the quality of your site.
Core Web Vitals are weighted equally across all industries and website types
Neither the type of website nor industry vertical will alter how much weight is given to Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics.
User Experience Speed Metrics Affect Rankings
The page speed metrics Google uses to rank pages is based on a real user’s rendered experience, not simply the fetch time of a page.
Noticably Slower Page Speed Affect Rankings
Page speed mostly affects websites in search which are very slow. You probably wouldn’t see a ranking difference between sites which are reasonably fast, but you might if there is a noticable difference in speed.
Speed Testing Tools Don’t Reflect Google’s Ability to Pre-render & Cache AMP Pages
When displaying AMP pages, Google is able to pre-render and cache them directly from the search results, which saves the time typically spent retrieving the initial HTML to get the rendered version. However, this isn’t something that is taken into account in the testing tools.
Confirm PageSpeed Insights & Structured Data Testing Tool IP Addresses with Test Page
PageSpeed Insights and the Structured Data Testing Tool use different IP addresses than Googlebot. There isn’t a list of IP addresses that they currently use, so check this using a test page and analyse the requests coming from these tools.
Speed is Critical For Google to Index Content Quickly
In order to index content quickly, for example news articles, Google need to be able to crawl the pages quickly. This includes being able to access the server quickly, with pages also loading quickly.