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signor_john - 3:17 pm on Nov 19, 2009 (gmt 0)
Yes, it might, but if Webmaster World's owner felt that the benefits of slower page-loading outweighed the benefits of ranking 2nd instead of 3rd for "widget anchor text" or "AdSense whatsit glitch," he might find the tradeoff acceptable. Just as important, Google searchers who weren't Webmaster World regulars wouldn't necessarily be missing anything, because: - Webmaster World wouldn't disappear from the rankings, and... - Searchers who never got beyond the top 1, 2, or 3 search results would be directed to similar information on sites that matched or outscored Webmaster World pages for Google's other 199 or so ranking factors. There's zero chance that Google will rank pages solely on how long they take to load, so why obsess about that one possible ranking factor? Especially when you should be able to fix the problem (and serve users better in the process) if it does turn out to affect your Google Search rankings?
people will quite happily wait for an extra second or two if they know what's coming. how many of us long-time users would desert webmasterworld if it suddenly started taking one second longer to load? probably none of us, but presumably it would suffer a hit to its rankings.