Speed May Now Be King For SEO

With Google's latest changes to its search engine algorithm, the time a page takes to load is becoming a critical factor in where that page places on the search engine results page (SERP). While SEO professionals have long known that this played a significant role, it now appears that speed may be approaching the emphasis of in-links, on-page relevancy and recency, the latter of which was the most recent shift before the latest change, no puns intended.

The thinking behind this new emphasis is that today's Web user no longer has the patience to wait, as this recent New York Times article discusses in depth with a telling quote from a Google engineer. So if your website is chock full of widgets, multimedia, feeds, numerous social links and heavy graphics, you might want to take an approach that all of us could use in several areas of our lives -- lighten up!