Testing Website Performance
How To Do The Right Tests For Your Website
Hi Folks
Read an interesting article today about the various ways you can test your website. It gave three ways which I have outlined below.
First a word about Google Page Speed Insights
This tool will test your speed on both mobile and desktop but the results should be looked at with some caution. Why? Because I have found that the results have not been a good reflection of reality.
The primary goal of this tool is to help site developers detect and fix issues that might be slowing down a website. I don't deny that it’s a great tool for that purpose. But the scores it shows are often meaningless in judging a websites performance. You should be much more concerned about fixing the issues detected by this tool, rather than being preoccupied with the scores.
Moving on to the three other tools.
First off there's - WebPageTest
This tool was also developed by Google, but is its mainly for professional website builders. This being so newbies or even not so newbies could find it difficult to use. However I have found it to be the only tool that actually measures real speed for real users.
The others are merely Best Practice tools.
Then there's Pingdom.com
Another great tool, as long as you ignore what it claims to be your loading time in seconds. Those numbers will always be inaccurate and usually much smaller than they are in reality.
Finally there's GTMetrix.com
Its the same as Pingdom and Google Page Speed Insights. However its another Best Practices tool and not really all that accurate for measuring your sites loading speed. Your website real speed for real users can only be measured on WebPageTest.
Ok folks, there you have it. In my opinion the very best tool to use is by far the WebPageTest one.
Try all three out and see what you think.
And lets not forget to Test Your Site for Mobile Browsers.
Have a great week and be successful.
Robert Allan
Recent Comments
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Thanks David! My site has hundreds of images and I've been looking for a way to see if there's a slowdown.
Hi Robert, thank you for this. I think it will come in really handy in getting a better insight into my web site performance.
Thank you for reading Michael and as always I'm happy to pass on my words of wisdom.
I personally don't bother with testing all that much, maybe once a month.
Better to concentrate on good marketing techniques and tactics.
So far, so good as they say.
Hope your Tuesday is going well.
Robert
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Thanks Robert, I've used them all and have found substantial differences in the reading from one to another.
As far as I am concerned for my new site, Google Page Insights is accurate for me (all pages in the high 90's and 100s) because in my case its an absolute reflection of the speed that I am experiencing on all pages. Both in desktop and mobile.
I am will check my performance with the others anyway.
No probs Kaju.
You must go with what you believe is best for you.
Thank you for visiting and for your input.
Hope your day is going well.
Mine is almost finished thank god as its been a long one.
I'm moving apartments and it takes up a lot of my time not to say energy.
Not too worry it will all be done by next Saturday the 16th.
Bye for now.
Robert
Thanks for taking the time out of your extremely bus day Robert:)
Good luck with the move!
It will be all hands on deck on the day but I will have my youngest brother and my oldest daughter with my oldest grand daughter to help.
I can sit back and supervise lol.
Robert
Good move, that's what family is for:)
Indeed it is but I will of course have to take them somewhere for eats.
Now Its that time of night when I should be switching this machine of.
Catch you another day Kaju.
Robert