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The Need for Speed: a Webmaster’s Reflexion

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For webmasters whose work on the Internet is their bread and butter, choosing the right web hosting provider is one of the most important professional decisions they ever make. There are many deciding factors a webmaster should consider when evaluating web hosting providers. Cost, reliability and customer service are all significant, but speed is perhaps the most crucial factor.

Novice webmasters often fall into the low-cost traps laid out by web hosting providers without taking speed into account. Even experienced webmasters evaluate economical alternatives to host their sites now and then, but they go about it in a very logical way. No smart webmaster will dare leave his or her site in the hands of a sluggish web host.

Why Speed Matters

From a point of view that is purely related to the science of economics, the Internet is the world’s largest bazaar. This analogy to the ancient and highly competitive Middle Eastern marketplace couldn’t be more accurate. The World Wide Web is no longer a simple electronic platform for the exchange of information and communications. The web is now the ultimate expression of free enterprise, and as such it has become a paragon of competition.

Speed is a clever way for webmasters to stand out in a vast ocean of competing websites.

The Sheer Amount of Competitors

According to statistics compiled by Internet giants Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ask.com, the estimated number of indexed web pages stands at about 9.2 billion. That’s almost twice the number of people in our planet. This should be a sobering shape for webmasters, as it gives them a pretty clear idea of the competition they face from billions of other sites around the world; each clamoring for the full attention of as many Internet users as possible.

The User Experience

To ensure that first-time visitors to a site do not navigate away from the page, and to ensure their eventual return and continuous patronage, webmasters apply reliable elements of optimal user experience to their web properties. Speed is one of these elements.

Users have come to appreciate fast-loading websites over laggards. In the lightning-fast realm of information technology, a 1 second delay is detrimental. Users have gotten pretty savvy about what to expect from their connection speeds, and thus now they know when their Internet-connected device is to blame for a slow browsing experience versus when a page is unresponsive due to a slow hosting provider.

Search Engine Optimization

It’s official: Google measures and takes into consideration page loading speeds when ranking search results. According to an announcement made on the Google Webmaster Central blog:

“faster sites create happy users.”

In other words, speed works wonders in terms of improving both the user experience and a site’s algorithmic ranking on the canonical Google search engine.

Speed Testing

Testing the speed of a potential new host is something every webmaster should do before cashing in those GoDaddy coupon codes. There are a number of sites which allow webmasters to ping a host and see the results displayed from an active server page. A more realistic test would be to ping the host from different residential Internet connections where users are more likely to browse from.

There are other factors to take into consideration, such as the physical location of the host’s servers and where most users are expected to visit from. One of the best testing methods can be found right from within Google Webmaster Tools.

Is Speed Really That Important?

Some webmasters go by the “speed is just a number” mantra when choosing a host, meaning that they don’t see the value in shaving off half a second from page load times.

What do you think?

About

Melissa is the editorial coordinator for www.Fatwallet.com. In her free time she enjoys kick boxing, spending time with friends, and working on her personal website.

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{ 9 Responses }

  1. Simon Duck says:
    I used to have crippling speed problems, making is impossible to even update my website. I know this is an extreme, but it makes you realise just how important speed of a website is. If it was annoying me that much, it must also be having an impact on potential customers. I'm still on a relatively cheap hosting package, bit over the years I have been with them it has improved 10fold. Currently I don't see the need for moving as it adequate for what i do. Regards, Simon Duck
  2. Jeanne Pi says:
    Having just optimized my own website for speed, here's a tip I got from my web developer: Download Firebug add-on for Firefox and the Page Speed extension to help you evaluate the performance of your web page. My site was loading really slow in Internet Explorer, so we ran Page Speed and saw that my home page was using up a LOT of resources (caused by all the social buttons like Twitter & Facebook on each of the post excerpts). Just by making one simple tweak (removing all the social buttons from the home excerpts), the resources used dropped by 1/2 and the page was able to load really fast.
  3. Matt Kinsella says:
    A lot about website speed being mentioned on blogs lately it must be a big issue of the moment. I know from my own experience if a site takes a while to open I will almost certainly navigate away.
  4. Assaf says:
    I totally agree that speed is a very important factor in both user experience and ranking. Though, regarding ranking, a page should beat competitors' pages and not an ultimate figure. A good evidence that page load speed is vital, is the fact that this parameter is checked by Google and can be seen in Google's Webmaster Tool account.
  5. Robert says:
    I think speed is more important for sites that are covering news and current unfolding events. It wouldn't be half as important to a site that just writes up occasional guides and advice
  6. Mark says:
    I know for a fact that speed matters Melissa. I actually have an article directory on my site for article marketers looking to have their work critiqued. As the number of members grew, I actually had to mod the script settings to keep it fast and clean. In that case, site-speed was severely affecting user experience. I always say tune you sites for speed and reduced server load especially since it is a metric in Google Webmaster Tools. What does that tell you? Mark
  7. Ian B says:
    I agree whole heartedly, i fell into the cheap hosting trap ...and did that more than once. to be honest a decent host is only a few dollars more a month (if that !) your website is a representation of your professional work so it does need to be a pleasant user experience. and since things are a lot more complicated now with WordPress and CMS based sites, speed is essential to your website ...yes you can get plug-ins that super cache but imagine if you use them on a decent server ! thanks for the heads up on the testing in webmaster tools ! :-)
  8. Deewave says:
    Speed Matters a lot.But many more aspects are also important. Selecting a web hosting package needs too much care before joining the service.Speed, Up time, customer support,site transferring,up gradation, price within your budget , all these things should be considered in mind. If you find all these facilities , you are the luckiest person in the fascinating world of internet.
  9. Ray says:
    Web hosting can be tricky if you want to find one that has fast loading servers, good support, and reasonable prices. Paying more doesn't necessarily mean faster or better service. It can, but that's not always the case. The way most cheap shared hosting works is the more accounts they put on a server the more money they make, and some really pack them in. If a site loads slow I usually don't stick around very long. I assume most people would do the same.