Slow pages lose rankings, lose visitors and lose sales. Google measures page speed through Core Web Vitals — LCP, CLS and INP — and uses them as direct ranking factors. Here is everything you need to know about finding and fixing speed problems on your site.
⚡ Test Page Speed All Performance Tools →Page speed is how fast your website loads for users. Google has included page speed as a ranking factor since 2010 — and in 2021 it introduced Core Web Vitals, a set of specific measurements that must meet minimum thresholds to achieve a "Good" page experience rating.
| Metric | What it measures | Good score |
|---|---|---|
| LCP | Time for largest content to appear | Under 2.5s |
| CLS | How much the layout shifts while loading | Under 0.1 |
| INP | Responsiveness to user interactions | Under 200ms |
Images are the most common cause of slow LCP. A 2MB JPEG that could be a 200KB WebP file wastes 10x the bandwidth. Convert images to WebP format and compress them before uploading.
JavaScript files loaded in the <head> without defer or async pause HTML parsing until they download and execute. Add defer to all non-critical scripts.
Without cache headers, returning visitors download every asset again on every visit. Set long cache expiry headers for static assets — images, CSS, JS files.
If your server takes over 600ms to respond, your TTFB (Time to First Byte) is too slow. This affects every metric. Consider upgrading hosting or adding a CDN.
Run the Page Speed Analyzer and get actionable results in minutes. Pay as you go — no subscription needed.
Test Page Speed →