Google Stresses Speed Yet Again with New Tool
December 9, 2009
Google has launched a new extension for its Chrome browser, which lets developers identify performance problems with their web apps. This may be an increasingly important issue if Google starts counting speed as a ranking factor in search results.
The tool is called Speed Tracer, and it uses a "sluggishness graph" combined with other metrics to help pinpoint the problems that are slowing web apps down. Engineering Director Bruce Johnson explains:
In the spirit of clean, simple design, developers need only look at the Y-Axis of their application's Sluggishness Graph to see how they're doing:
* If the y-axis is close to zero, then the app is fast
* If the y-axis registers around 100%, then the app is, well, sluggish
And in either case, Speed Tracer provides lots of additional data to help diagnose any particular performance issue
Following is a tutorial for the tool:
A longer video of Speed Tracer being discussed at Google's Campfire One event can be viewed below:
"We think developers will find that Speed Tracer looks under the covers of web applications like never before," says Johnson. "In fact, we even used Speed Tracer to optimize the performance of Speed Tracer itself!"
Google has been on a real speed kick as of late. For some other examples of what I'm talking about, just follow the related articles below.
Have You Read This?
> Google: Page Speed May Become a Ranking Factor in 2010
> Google Tracks User Data to Monitor Load Times
> Google Introduces Page Speed Tool
> Google Wants the Web to Function Like a Magazine
> Google Provides Tool for Speeding Up Web Pages
> Google Lets Businesses Speed Up Videos
> Google Launches Site Performance Feature
> Google Announces SPDY Application-Layer Protocol
Google Launches Site Performance Feature
December 3, 2009
In mid-June, Google commenced an initiative known as "Let's make the web faster." Late yesterday, the search giant performed a follow-through of sorts with the release of an experimental feature called "Site Performance."
Google's been growing more and more focused on speed in recent weeks. Last month alone, there were two major developments as the SPDY research project was announced and Matt Cutts indicated that Google might make page speed a ranking factor in 2010.
Now, a post on the Webmaster Central Blog has explained, "On Site Performance, you'll find how fast your pages load, how they've fared over time, how your site's load time compares to that of other sites, examples of specific pages and their actual page load times, and Page Speed suggestions that can help reduce user-perceived latency."
Additional information and recommendations should become available over time, too.
This tool should benefit just about everyone, considering that most sites' visitors are impatient and sites do better when they stick around. If you notice something odd (or good) about the Site Performance feature, just be sure to let Google know through the Webmaster Tools Forum.
Have You Read This?
> Google: Page Speed May Become A Ranking Factor In 2010
> Google Announces SPDY Application-Layer Protocol
> Google Provides Tool For Speeding Up Web Pages
Google Gives Forums More Links on SERPs
October 1, 2009
Google has introduced a new feature to search results, making it easier to find forum posts related to topics you search for. When forum sites have more than one relevant discussion going, Google will link to them under the main result.
"So for instance, if you search for [getting from rome to florence] you will see, below the third result, a list of relevant discussions on various ways to get between these cities," says Google's Director of Product Management Johanna Wright.
"It's always nice to know what others are saying about the best ways to get around (by boat or train) and how recent those comments are — especially if it's your first time traveling to Italy," she adds.
The inclusion of these forum results are just the latest example of Google adding more links to the results page. Recently, they also began adding links for sections of pages, based on anchors in content. These apply to web pages that have distinguishable sections about different topics or sub-topics. You can learn about the criteria for getting those links to show up for your content here.
Another good way to find relevant forum posts on a topic is to use Google's search options, which include an option to only search forum results. This is not unlike Google's Blog Search.
Where Google Stands on the “Keywords” Meta Tag
September 22, 2009
Google does not use the "keywords" meta tag in its web search ranking. Google's Matt Cutts explains this in a Webmaster Central video.
"About a decade ago, search engines judged pages only on the content of web pages, not any so-called "off-page" factors such as the links pointing to a web page," says Cutts. "In those days, keyword meta tags quickly became an area where someone could stuff often-irrelevant keywords without typical visitors ever seeing those keywords. Because the keywords meta tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag."
Just because Google ignores the "keywords" meta tag, that doesn't mean it ignores all meta tags. In fact, there are several that the search engine definitely uses. For one, Google sometimes uses the "description" meta tag as the text for search results snippets. But even in then, the "description" meta tag isn't used to influence ranking.
Google also recognizes the "google," "robots," "verify-v1," "content type," and "refresh" meta tags. Information about how Google understands these can be found at this page in the Webmaster Tools help center.
"It's possible that Google could use this information in the future, but it's unlikely," Cutts says of the "keywords" meta tag. "Google has ignored the keywords meta tag for years and currently we see no need to change that policy."
So the moral of the story is, if a competitor is jacking your keywords, and using them in their own "keywords" meta tag, this will have no effect whatsoever in how they rank in Google when compared to your site. Cutts says other search engines might use the information, but Google doesn't.
Google does note that its enterprise Search Appliance has the ability to match meta tags, but this is of course separate from Google web search.
