SiteHealth and PageSpeed Insights Disparity
I am confused.
I throw this out to the people of this community for comment and discussion. Because I can't imagine I am the only one.
I am not complaining. I just want to understand the numbers and associated impact.
The following images visually represent the disconnect I am seeing between SiteHealth and PageSpeed Insights.
My SiteHealth shows 30% for Plugins because I have 8 active plugins.
Yet, the PageSpeed Insights shows good scores for the homepage and posts/pages.
It seems to me that if the PageSpeed Insights numbers are good, so should the Plugins and SiteHealth numbers.
To evaluate whether we have too many plugins, there are tools to test plugins impact on site speed and performance. Besides the mentioned Google PageSpeed Insights tool, GTmetrix is another tool to use.
Before adding another plugin, run a speed test to get a baseline number. Then add and activate a new plugin and repeat the speed test.
This test will tell you if the plugin causes slower page load times and degrades user experience.
Another useful test is to run another test with all plugins deactivated to see what the numbers are. Repeat again after activating each plugin separately.
Have fun.
Recent Comments
15
Hi Glen
SiteHealth is just a suggestion tool - it is not set in concrete - it only provide guidelines so that beginners have something to go by. Newcomers don't know how to test plugins yet, and in order not to bog them down with too much stuff, 5 plugins are suggested. (Otherwise, with all the plugins that are available, I definitely would have been like a kid in a candy store.) ;-)
SiteSpeed is your main measurement that you want to pay serious attention to, since that is what is important to your site visitors and to Google.
Hope this helps!
Sharlee (Chocolate IceCream)
Think this is very worthwhile information to follow, I have yet to complete a site or blog, but it sounds to make a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing.
You are welcome, Paul. I have come to the conclusion that I don't need to worry endlessly about the SiteHealth rankings.
I use GTmetrix and I think it's great. Some days it shows a site's speed as being fast, then after some hours, it shows it as being poor, without my having added or removed anything from the site.
The other site speed tools I occassionally use do the same thing...
I would be more concerned about your site's speed being good, rather than the 30% as indicated above, Glen.
See more comments
Thanks for presenting this Glen,
The answers here have cleared that up in my mind as well.
Great work!
KyleAnn
You are welcome, KyleAnn. I am glad it helped you. I imagine it helped others as well as it did me.