Does Google SiteKit Plugin Slow Your WebSite Mobile Speed? Yes or No? You Decide
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Does Google Sitekit Plugin Slow Your WebSite Mobile Speed? Yes or No? You Decide
Google Sitekit Plugin is an excellent tool for bloggers and web administrators who want to track and analyze site performance. It's a free plugin that integrates with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and AdSense. But does it slow down your website's mobile speed? Is mobile speed critical? How do you fix it? These are great questions.
In this blog post, I will share my issues, answer the questions, report the advantages and disadvantages, and discuss improving your mobile speed.
Personal Issues with Sitekit Plugin
I experienced an issue with my mobile speed today. This led me to ask this question to our wonderful Wealthy Affiliate Community.
How to fix my mobile speed that is in Sitekit?
I did take some screenshots, but some could not see them. I show the screenshots at (The Advantages of Using Google Sitekit Plugin). Thank all for those in WA Community who gave me responses.
My first step was to follow Kyle's training- since Kyle highly recommended this, and so did Partha. This was set up a few days ago.
Setting Up Search Console & Analytics with Google Site Kit
Everything else looked good. I checked for speed insight and got mobile considered poor while desktop speed was good, as seen in screenshots at the question link above.
The Advantages of Using Google Sitekit Plugin
The best thing about the Google Sitekit plug-in is that it helps you integrate all the tools without having to manually or with the need for coding. The plugin only gives you a quick summary to track your performance.
The advantage is that you can see organic, direct, referral, social, and email traffic. You can see your traffic impressions, top search queries, and page speed insights.
PagesSpeed Insights calculates 3-speed metrics to calculate the core web vital score. You can see mobile or desktop to check the Lab and the Field Metrics.
This is what my mobile speed looks like in Google Sitekit Speed. As you can see, it's poor and needs fixing. I click on How to improve.
I get this:
Of course, it gives me suggestions but does not give me a full explanation of what to do or what that means. That is the problem. I needed to find out why.
The Disadvantages of Using Google Sitekit Plugin
The disadvantage is that there are limitations to its reporting. It gives you basic information that connects to your website. It only uses Google Analytics. It has yet to bring any data from Google Analytics 4. There needs to be more data to make decisions. It doesn’t help to fix the problems. There is no way to resolve any actions with the Sitekit plugin. It is known to slow your mobile speed.
Why does it slow down your website's mobile speed?
I found it very ironic that the Google developers created this, and they can't even tell us why it slows your mobile speed down. They denied that this plugin does not slow your website rate down. Naturally, they would be defensive because their goal is not to hurt your website. I had to do my testing. I was waiting for answers from the Google experts when I sent them a query this morning. I do not know why. I know it is an issue for other people and me.
I checked out GTMetrix to check my mobile speed with Sitekit still activated on my website.
That tells me something isn't right. I quickly figured out that one of the plugins was causing the problem, but I did not know which one.
Is Mobile Speed Critical?
Yes, it is critical. According to Google, 63% of people are mobile users searching the Internet daily. I must pay attention to this.
Of course., there will always be fluctuations in mobile speed daily due to the number of images. Some members may be OK with their Sitekit.
Thanks to Matt44000 explained the answer I was looking for. He answered my question. He explained the same plugin that I installed, the Google Sitekit, caused my mobile speed to slow down.
If you have trouble with this plugin, you don't need to continue reading about it. Next, if any of you show some issues, here is what I did to fix the problem.
How do you fix it?
I went back to my WordPress site. Click the plugin, look for Sitekit, deactivate, then delete. I went back to Google PageSpeed Insight, typed in my URL, and it showed this image.
There! Much better! I checked again to see if other plugins were causing the problem. I do not have many plugins, so my mobile speed now has improved without this Google Sitekit Plugin. The problem is solved!
Conclusion
IMHO, I do not think the Google Sitekit plugin is necessary. You can use Google Search Console, Google Analytics or Analytic 4, and PageSpeed Insights, all in Google manually. You get better results this way. I am glad I do not need this. I would rather keep my mobile speed at the number it states rather than at a poor speed.
Resources:
A Trick to Improve Your Mobile Speed
How to Optimize Your Site Performance Using WP Rocket
Website speed optimization - Definitive guide
Have a great FriSatSu
-BrendaMZ
Recent Comments
15
Hi, Brenda
I was using Google Site Kit and it didn’t affect my metrics on PageSpeed Insights.
However, I didn’t need it so I deleted the plugin quite a while ago.
I do serve all my images in WebP format and it makes a big difference in file size and load time.
Frank 🎸
I do not understand what webP means. I am so tired now, ready for bed. I will check it out tomorrow.
You listed it in your post, Brenda, so I was responding. It’s a graphic compression standard like png and jpg, but much more efficient.
Good Night and Sleep Well! 😎
Frank 🎸
Also remember if you are on an encrypted network connection that too will slow you down, not sure of your internet provider but if you are using DSL that to will come into play...anyway take care.
Mz
No not on DSL gawd, that's old I'm on very high tech internet very high speed fiber optics one of the best blazing fast!
See more comments
Hey BB,
There is no actual plugin that will "slow your site down".
If you think about it, the developers of plugins wouldn't have a business if they created a WordPress plugin that automatically slowed down a website.
Here's the way to look at your website, and the things you add to it.
Let's say I ask someone to help me carry a few things.
So, initially a place a fairly light box in their hands, they go to carry the box to its destination, but I tell them to hold on, as there's more stuff to carry.
I then load another, but heavier, box on top of the first box.
I tell the person to hold on.
I continue to add boxes until we have a pile of boxes 20ft tall and weighing approximately 200lbs.
How far do you think that person is going to get with those boxes?
Essentially, your website works in the same way.
When you first create your website it starts off as a completely blank canvas.
Then, you simply add more-and-more things to it on a daily basis.
A new theme.
5 different plugins.
Content in the form of blog posts.
Within that content you also add media, such as images and videos.
You then add MORE plugins at a later date.
All of this is much the same as our poor friend trying to carry a huge tower of boxes that weighs more than them.
So, often a website's speed will slow down because of all the "heavy loading".
However, with a website you can actually add More and yet somehow "lighten the load".
A prime example of this would be an image optimazation plugin.
You now have a website with over 5,000 images, and this is starting to slow your site down.
However, a decent image optimation plugin will initially serve your images in a "lighter" format, e.g. "next-gen image format - WebP, png, etc.
It will reduce the file size of your images.
Next, it will "lazy-load" your images, which simply means that the images don't load immediately, therefore allowing entry to your website to be much quicker.
Okay, now one of the biggest problems with websites as they age, and get more things "weighing them down" is often a number of things added to your website will conflict with each other.
And it is this conflict that actually causes slow-loading, slow website speeds, etc.
Site Kit is actually known to conflict with caching abilities, javascript, storage, etc.
Don't worry, I'll make this all easily understandable now.
Basically, the best way to install Site Kit is to temporarily disable these things while you set up Site Kit.
So, this could include turning WA's SiteSpeed off during the set up.
If you have a caching plugin, e.g. WP Rocket, then turn this off during the set up.
The same goes for an image optimzer plugin, e.g. Smush, Imagify, etc. Once again, turn this off during initial set up.
Once Site Kit is installed, you can then re-enable everything.
But, do so one at a time, and check your SiteSpeed as you turn each plugin on.
While this may sound like a hassle, it will also help you determine if there is a specific plugin that conflicts with Site Kit.
So, if when reactiving one specific plugin you see your speed dramatically reduce, there is clearly a conflict between the two plugins.
It's then up to you to decide whether you need both of these plugins, and which one of the two is better for you to have activated.
Okay, I realise this sounds like a massive hassle, but during your blogging journey, over the course of many years, I can guarantee that you will learn about new plugins/themes/software that may better enhance your business.
But, once more, the more you add to your website, the "heavier" (think about your friend carrying those boxes) it becomes.
You will also find that certain themes can conflict with certain plugins and even with the Wealthy Affiliate hosting/caching abilities.
So realistically, whenever you add some new type of software to your website, whatever it is, check your site speed.
If you see a substantial drop in speed score, then clearly the new software you've just added conflicts with something else.
Your aim is to work out what it's conflicting with by disabling and re-enabling things one at a time, i.e. plugins, themes, WA SiteSpeed, etc.
As I say, this may sound like a massive hassle, but you know as well as me, as your journey continues your website gets "heavier" with each and every day.
In truth, you don't really need to Site Kit at all.
You could in effect set up everything you need with a few clicks of a mouse, e.g. Google Analytics, Google Serach Console, Google Adsense, etc.
And then once set up is complete, simply disable Site Kit.
It's nice to see stats in your WordPress back office, but obviously once things like GA and GSC are set up, you can just pop over there to view your stats!
PP
p.s. Just for you, no capaitalization and no excessive use of exclamation marks, so STOP MOANING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Hahahahaha!!! :))
Monkey 🙈, 🙉, 🙊 GOT IT?
Great insights.