WEBSITE SPEED CHECKER
Website Speed Checker is an amazing free tool that monitors and analyzes the performance of your website. Simply enter your domain or URL, and hit enter to begin the process. Once it has analyzed the page, you will immediately see the results presented to you in an easy to understand format.
This tool is extremely useful for those who are not familiar with web servers, caching, and web performance in general. If you're looking to take your site's performance to the next level, this is a solid starting point for you.
The Importance Of A Fast Website
The importance of a fast website is pretty self-explanatory; if your site is not loading quickly, then users will quickly become dissatisfied and leave your website in search of an easier option.
According to an industry report from Blue Wheel Analytics, 46% of users abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Even more concerning is that 20% of users will leave a site if it takes over 4 seconds to load.
It's important to note that users have become accustomed to quick website loads. In 2018, Google introduced the mobile-first index, which prioritizes speed over many other factors such as content, quality, and user-friendliness. As a result, more and more sites are receiving low-priority rankings and disappearing from Google's search results.
How Website Speed Checker Works
Website Speed Checker is an amazing little tool that uses several approaches to make sure that your site loads as quickly as possible. To start, the tool will monitor the performance of your site using a handful of popular web traffic generators (see below). Once it has an idea of what's normal for your site, it will compare everything to this baseline. Any changes that are significantly different from what is commonly seen will trigger an alert so that you can investigate the cause.
The following are the approaches that Website Speed Checker uses to determine the performance of your website:
A/B Testing
The first approach that Website Speed Checker uses to determine the performance of your website is A/B testing. This approach randomly assigns users to different versions of a web page, or variation of a web page's content (such as different headlines, images, or videos), for a period of time before gathering feedback to determine which version (or variations) worked better.
While this approach can be highly useful in determining the optimal version of a web page or content, it requires a significant amount of experimentation before you see any results. As a result, it is not the best approach for those who are seeking to quickly get results.
Page Speed
The second approach that Website Speed Checker uses to determine the performance of your website is examining the page speed. This approach scores the performance of a page based on various metrics, including the timings for loading different resources (such as JavaScript files, CSS files, and images) and how quickly the site responds to user interactions (such as clicks and keyboard strokes).
One of the metrics that it uses to score the speed of a page is the "Time to first meaningful paint". This is the amount of time that it takes for the page to display content that is not obscured by any browser tabs, pop-ups, or other browser windows. As a result, this metric represents how quickly a page can be rendered after being loaded into a browser. Longer times to first meaningful paint indicate that the page is not as quick to load as it could be.
Another metric that is used to score the speed of a page is the "Time to first interactive element". This is the amount of time that it takes for the page to display an element that is interactive, such as a button or link that can be clicked on by the user. A shorter time to first interactive element indicates that the page is easier to use.
Robots.txt Testing
The third approach that Website Speed Checker uses to determine the performance of your website is looking at the robots.txt file. This approach randomly assigns users to different versions of a web page, or variation of a web page's content (such as different headlines, images, or videos), for a period of time before gathering feedback to determine which version (or variations) worked better.
The robots.txt file is a special file that tells search engines and other web crawlers for which pages they should not index, and which pages should be accessible to human users only. When a web crawler encounters a robots.txt file, it stops crawling that particular website, and any links that it generated to other websites will become inaccessible. This allows you to see how various versions of a web page or content perform without the fear of your results being skewed by a web crawler.
A popular way to use the robots.txt testing is to create different versions of a web page or content, and see what performs best. You can use different headlines, images, or videos for each version, and test which performs best based on the parameters that you establish beforehand.
Resource Timings
The fourth approach that Website Speed Checker uses to determine the performance of your website is examining the load times for different resources. This approach scores the performance of a page based on various metrics, including the timings for loading different resources (such as JavaScript files, CSS files, and images) and how quickly the site responds to user interactions (such as clicks and keyboard strokes).
One of the metrics that it uses to score the speed of a page is the "Time to first meaningful paint". This is the amount of time that it takes for the page to display content that is not obscured by any browser tabs, pop-ups, or other browser windows. As a result, this metric represents how quickly a page can be rendered after being loaded into a browser. Longer times to first meaningful paint indicate that the page is not as quick to load as it could be.
Another metric that is used to score the speed of a page is the "Time to first interactive element". This is the amount of time that it takes for the page to display an element that is interactive, such as a button or link that can be clicked on by the user. A shorter time to first interactive element indicates that the page is easier to use.
Server Caching
The fifth approach that Website Speed Checker uses to determine the performance of your website is checking the server caching. This approach examines the headers (such as the HTTP headers) that are stored on your server. When a user requests a page, the server will first check if it has already stored a copy of that page in its cache. If it has, then it will serve up this cached version to the user, which saves them both time and resources.
The headers that are examined by the server caching approach vary depending on the web server that you are using. In general, though, you can see whether or not the server has a cached version of a page by looking for the "Vary" header. If this header does not exist, then the server has not cached the page, and it will need to go out and fetch the fresh version from the server each time that it is requested by a user.
Conclusion
Website Speed Checker is a handy little tool that can be used to determine the performance of your website. It uses several different methods to make sure that your site loads as quickly as possible, which is a great testament to its efficiency.
If you're looking to quickly find out how your site is performing, then this is a free tool that you can use to your advantage.
