The speed at which a website loads will soon be a determining
factor in its Google rank, according to lead Google engineer Matt Cuts.
"We
are starting to think more and more about whether speed should be a
factor in Google's rankings. We haven't used it yet in our web
rankings, but a lot of people within Google think the web should be
fast, it should be a good experience." said Matt Cuts at PubCon in Las Vegas
"Its fair to say
if you're a fast site you should get a bonus, and if you are a slow site,
perhaps people don't want that as much"
He pointed to a number of tools available at
code.google.com/speed which can help determine where your site is slowing down and how to fix those problems.
One of the more interesting tools is the just released
Closure JavaScript optimisation tool. It takes your existing JavaScript and "squooshes it down a ton and makes it a lot faster." This could be a boon for website owners, with inefficient JavaScript responsible for slow loading pages around the web.
Matt Cutts also relieved many an anxious webmaster coming into the busy Christmas period. In the interview with Mike MacDonald
from WebProNews he noted that whilst Google's upcoming Caffeine search infrastructure update is
ready for launch they are holding it back until the holidays are over.
Effectively this means a slow rollout, restricted to one data centre until the end of the holidays.
The slow roll out is designed to ensure retailers don't get any
unexpected web results during the lucrative Christmas buying period.
You can check out the full interview here.
