Why Your PageSpeed Insights Score Varies (And Isn’t 100)

Google PageSpeed Insights tests your website and gives you a score based on speed and structure.

Depending on how many details you want to know about your site, your developer may talk about your PageSpeed Insights score. If you test it yourself, you might see that the number keeps changing. What’s up with that?

How It Works

Imagine a runner trying to improve himself. When he runs, he might look at lots of things: speed, heart rate, steps, calories burned, et cetera.

Even if he runs the same path every day, his numbers will be slightly different. Maybe the trail is more crowded sometimes. Maybe he feels more energized on some days and more tired on others. Each time he does it, it’s different. And if he tries to sum up all his numbers into one score, it’s going to vary a lot.

This is like PageSpeed Insights. When it tests your site, it gets slightly different numbers each time. Then, it tries to summarize in one big score.

The big score doesn’t mean as much as the little numbers do. These include things like Largest Contentful Paint (how fast the biggest element on the page loads) or Total Blocking Time (how much time the site spends loading scripts before it can load the visual parts). This is what we look at when we work on improving your speed.

Getting Faster

Our runner is going to carry a certain amount of weight: his water bottle, his phone, his shoes, and his clothes. If it’s a long run, then he might want to carry a backpack with some snacks and supplies.

But if he overpacks, things slow down. Imagine a runner trying to go far carrying two water bottles, a change of clothes, wet wipes, two apples, an apple slicer, and a jar of peanut butter (for dipping the apple slices). If he brings all these extras to a race, he’s not likely to win.

Extra features slow sites down. I once had a client install a plugin called Visitor Analytics. Suddenly, the site speed was slower. I uninstalled it with the client’s permission, but things didn’t improve. It was like the site was wearing a zombie as a backpack. There was so much extra bulk slowing things down, the score was in the low yellow zone. Finally, I found and deleted the tracking code. Suddenly, the site was nearly twice as fast.

Removing unneeded bulk makes the site faster. So when I work with clients, we prioritize the features. We bring what we need and we skip the extras.

Can You Be Too Fast?

Maybe our runner wants to get rid of all the bulk. He might be faster if he didn’t have to carry a heavy water bottle and phone. He also could get rid of some weight on his body if he chopped off all his hair, ran barefoot, and took off all his clothes.

But his water bottle and phone serve important functions. His hair looks good. His clothes help him look the way he likes to look (and also stop him from getting arrested in public).

Now, nobody will arrest you for having a bare-bones HTML website. But they’re probably not going to hang around very long, either.

There is such a thing as sacrificing too much for speed. If you take away all the CSS and JavaScript from your page, you end up with an ugly page that doesn’t do much.

Your PageSpeed Insights Score

Google likes faster sites. So if you have a good PageSpeed Insights score, it’s easier to rank high on search results. That’s why we at EpiBuild consider speed one important part of a good website.

But it’s not the only part. Popularity matters too. Google looks for sites that are fast, authoritative, and beloved by users.

If a runner wants to be both fast and popular, then they would try to be:

• Efficient with what they carry
• Wearing good running shoes
• Good-looking (yes, people are shallow)
• Friendly and kind
• Knowledgeable and helpful

And if you want a site that’s both fast and popular, you need it to be:

• Limited to only the fancy features it truly needs
• Optimized for speed
• Well designed
• User-friendly
• Full of content that provides value

Search engine results are both a race and a popularity contest. So you want to be good at both of these, not just one. You don’t need to be #1 in every contest every time. Instead, aim to place high consistently.

We can help make your site fast. But we won’t sacrifice key features for a few extra points. Instead, we’ll help you find the right balance.

To improve your site, test your speed now or read more about SEO. And you can always ask us for help!