Get Rid of Slow Load Times Once and For All?
Two weeks ago Google began offering landing page load time evaluations per keyword on the Keyword Analysis Page, and in several weeks, load time will begin to affect your quality score. This latest addition is supposed to further enhance the searcher experience. This search marketing diva is skeptical. Sure, Google has policies for landing page content and stands firmly behind its belief that it wants to provide the searchers with quality ads, but, how is page load time more important than the actual time spent on the site? How does the fact that a page may take a little longer to load matter more than if the overall user experience is better on the site than a faster loading one. Just because a destination page is appealing by Google standards does not mean that the site as a whole provides a good user experience. I am also a little concerned about having clients change websites to appease Google’s advertising standards. To see if you meet Google’s standards, go to any ad group and click on the keyword tab. Choose the Keyword Diagnostics icon, choose Details and Recommendations for quality score, the Landing Page Load Time is on the bottom.
on May 28th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I support this change, and I think their aim is to get rid of only the worst offenders and broken sites. I know I’ve hit the back button more than a few times when a paid ad won’t load, just yesterday I did it after clicking a display ad that wouldn’t resolve after 5 seconds…. and as we all know, 5 seconds feels like forever on the internet =)