On 9 July, Google rolled out what it calls the Speed Update: page speed is now an official ranking factor for mobile search.
Speed has been a ranking factor for desktop since 2010. For mobile (where the majority of Google searches now happen) it has not been. That changes now.
Google has stated that the update initially affects only the slowest pages, and that relevance still outweighs speed. But the direction is clear, and this is directly connected to the mobile-first indexing rollout already underway.
How slow is too slow?
Google recommends pages load in under three seconds on a mobile connection. That sounds straightforward. It is not.
Google's own data puts the average mobile page load time globally at well over ten seconds. Most SMB websites have never been properly measured on mobile, and many owners would be surprised by what the numbers show.
Three seconds is ambitious. But five to six seconds is achievable for most websites without major rebuilds.
What is slowing your site down?
The most common culprits:
Unoptimised images A photo taken on a mobile phone can easily be 4–8 MB. A properly optimised version of the same image should be under 200 KB. Uncompressed images are the single most common cause of slow websites.
Too many plugins and scripts WordPress sites that have grown through plugins over time often load three to five times more JavaScript and CSS than necessary.
No caching Without proper configuration, the server reloads all resources on every visit. Good caching can halve load time without changing a single image or line of content.
Slow server response Budget shared hosting often produces a slow TTFB (time to first byte) the time between the browser requesting the page and receiving the server's first response.
How to check your own site
Google provides two free tools:
PageSpeed Insights: gives you a score and specific improvement points for both mobile and desktop. Search for it directly in Google.
Google Search Console: includes a Core Web Vitals report showing data from real users on your site, not just a lab test.
Both are free and do not require technical expertise to read.
What can you do without rebuilding everything?
Many speed gains are available without touching the codebase:
- Compress all images on the site (free tools exist for this)
- Enable GZIP compression on the server
- Set up basic browser caching
- Remove plugins and scripts you are not actively using
- Consider a CDN for static resources
These steps alone can produce meaningful improvements on most existing websites.
The connection to mobile-first is not coincidental
We wrote in November about Google's shift to mobile-first indexing. The Speed Update is the next step in the same direction: Google is building a search engine optimised for how people actually use the internet today, on a phone, on the move, on a variable connection.
Websites built primarily for desktop and broadband were not built for that reality.
Want to know how fast your website loads on mobile, and what can be done about it? Get in touch: we will run a review and give you concrete steps to take.