Google to Use Page Speed as Ranking Factor for Mobile Search
Found on eWEEK on Thursday, 18 January 2018
Generally, websites with fast loading pages will get a higher ranking in search results than those of the same quality content but with slower page speeds. Google will apply the speed-ranking factor to all mobile pages regardless of the technology used to build the page.
More recently, the company began rolling out mobile-first indexing under which it has begun using the mobile version of a website's content first when indexing pages for search. Prior to the shift, Google's search engine crawlers looked at the desktop content first for site indexing.
Google needs to treat all versions of a website equally; websites need to load fast on mobile and desktop devices. That should make webmasters think before adding tons of external resources; some websites come with several dozens of trackers, and once you turn off Javascript those pages load an order of magnitude faster.