Do many comments for an article slow page speed?

[shallow]

Every now and then I get a memo from Google that "search results clicks for [#*$!#*$!.com...] have decreased significantly."

Google Webmaster tools tells me that my site is "slower than 91% of sites." Yet Alexa reported that it was much faster than most sites on the web.

My site has been optimized for speed and everyone who's checked says it's very fast.

Both the url in the memo and the URL examples goggle gives me for slow site pages are those that have hundreds of comments left by site visitors.

I note a growing number of sites have comments turned off by default, but provide a link that site visitors can click if opt to read them.

Should I have the already posted comments turned off and give visitors the choice to make them visible?

Do you think the long list of comments are slowing down my pages, at least in the eyes of Google?

Google is probably penalizing me for a slow site though every other metric we've used says it's above average speed. But Google is god, right?

Thank you for any helpful suggestions or insights.

[shallow]

Any one have any experience or insights with this issue? Thank you.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Shallow, Google will only speed test 1% of your total impressions according to their literature and this is predominantly done via their Chrome browser for obvious reasons. It also tends to happen for your busiest pages regardless of country of origin of your visitors. It's not an accurate way of measuring speed.

A CDN might be your biggest help if your visitors come from around the world. Having a server smack in the middle of where your visitors are is always ideal.

No Google isn't god and they likely aren't penalizing you. I believe you'll even see they tell you how accurate the sampling was by telling you if it was a small, medium or large sampling. Less than 2,000 visitors a day = small to medium sampling at best which happens to include most sites.

[levo]

You can test the actual loading time by using this script on ie9/chrome/firefox

if (window.performance&&performance.timing) {
$(window).load(function () {
var htmlfivespeed = performance.timing.loadEventStart - performance.timing.fetchStart;
htmlfivespeed = htmlfivespeed/1000;
$("body").append('<div style="position:fixed;bottom:1px;right:1px;padding:4px;background-color:#000;color:#FFF;font-size:12px;">'+htmlfivespeed+'</div>');
});
}

You can also load comments with ajax after onload event.

[lucy24]

If you have an enormously long page, then obviously it will take longer to load than a short page from the same source. g### isn't measuring speed per byte but total speed.

Coincidentally I just noticed (different thread) that they claim I am faster than ... uh ... something wildly improbable, like "98% of all sites". I can only say that those figures must be based on my most emaciated pages, because I know my host is not all that speedy.

[SirTox]

If you're talking about WordPress, it's especially slow if you have nested comments enabled. This is because there is a bunch of javascript that loads at the top of the page when it's turned on.

There's also a setting related to converting emoticons and using gravatars which can also slow down your pages. I like to disable everything and keep it basic and also set it to load only 10 comments at a time.

[shallow]

thank you everyone (!) for your helpful replies. I found this one especially pertinent:

"If you're talking about WordPress, it's especially slow if you have nested comments enabled. This is because there is a bunch of javascript that loads at the top of the page when it's turned on.

"There's also a setting related to converting emoticons and using gravatars which can also slow down your pages. I like to disable everything and keep it basic and also set it to load only 10 comments at a time."

Yes, I'm using WordPress. Thanks for these insights and, again, thank you all!

[shallow]

SirTox,

I'm I correct in assuming, based on your comments, that I should have have posted comments turned off? If a site visitor wants to read them, give them an option to manually enable them?!

[SirTox]

Turning posted comments would be a bit extreme. What I'd do is open your WP admin panel and go to Discussion and Uncheck "Enable threaded comments". Check "Break comments into pages" and maybe select to display 5 comments at a time.

Under the Writing settings, uncheck the option to "Convert emoticons".

These steps are ideal for gaining a bit more page speed.

[bluemonster]

enable threaded comments, So first page make sure only 5 to 6 comments.

[rlopes]

Don't disable the comments just to get faster. You gotta balance speed and content, and also notice that not all audiences care the same about website speed.
Tech savvy people are usually much more worried about speed then most people, for example.