Google recently announced that load times would be a factor in their search engine rankings. I’ve been among the many who’ve wondered just how much weight to give this factor in terms of recommendations to clients and associates. After all, running YSlow or Google Page Speed will nearly always reveal a list of recommended improvements, but implementing those improvements also translates to an investment of resources. Resources tend to be limited and various tasks compete for priority, so where does load time fall on the priority list?
In this video Matt Cutts does pretty good job of putting it in perspective. I guess one way of putting it is that all else being “equal” load time could be something of tie-breaker. In competitive verticals that could be reason enough.
