Google Console Speed vs PageSpeed Insights (more info whoops)

[Steven29]

Hi,

Does anybody else notice HUGE discrepancies between the MOBILE Google Search Console Speed (experimental) Aggregated FID results vs PageSpeed Insights "Max Potential First Input Delay".

Maybe there is a huge delay on these reports?

I have done many changes (3+ weeks ago) and my Google Search Console Speed results seem to keep going the wrong direction now... (see screen shot).

(mobile) [i.ibb.co...]
(desktop) [i.ibb.co...]

So why are the results now going the opposite direction.. for mobile? The "Origin Summary" used to be 2% over 300 MS as well, before "optimizing" lol.

The desktop went slightly down as expected, but the Mobile is going the wrong direction.

[edited by: goodroi at 3:09 pm (utc) on Apr 27, 2020]
[edit reason] fixed image link [/edit]

[goodroi]

I wouldn't worry too much about this.

#1 - Google has said that speed is a very small part of the ranking formula. I'm not saying speed isn't important because it does indirectly impacts many important factors. I'm saying that some people worry too much over milliseconds and too little over providing a valuable user experience which tends to have a much greater influence on website success.

#2 - Google has recently been making changes to Search Console, which has a long reputation of glitches and not always showing the most accurate data. I think Google even has a beta label on their speed report, so I wouldn't rely too heavily on it.

#3 - Perform your own usability testing & page monitoring to ensure your site delivers a good user experience (which should be relatively fast). Don't rely on Google's data which might be delayed/inaccurate/incomplete.

Remember you have limited time & resources so you want to focus on what matters the most.

[Steven29]

Hi,

Thank you for the response.

I am not "too worried" about these results, but I would like the stats to show the work I put into things. It has been said that the Android browser will soon reflect your "site speed" allowing a user to click the back button before loading your site.

Here's a response to your questions:

#1 - Google has said speed plays a very small part in ranking, but I can see improvements by improving page speed.

#2 - I have seen a new notice in the Google Search Console Speed report saying "Task validation is temporarily disabled due to upcoming changes in the report" Maybe they are onto something here?

#3 - I have optimized using the Developer Tools and CPU slowdown x6 and throttled bandwidth. There are no scripts that should take longer than 80 MS, even with the CPU slow down.

I have not done tricks and other things like using Rocket Loader and other tools to "improve my page score.".

When running these tests I receive a 98 for mobile and 95 for desktop and see no bottlenecks through Firefox or Chrome with a cpu slowdown of x6.

[Steven29]

The Google Search Console now has a link pointing to [support.google.com...]

[nomis5]

No, you cant see improvements after improving page speed. May be you think you can but the improvements are almost certainly caused by one of a million other factors.

Page speed, according to Google, is a tiny, tiny factor in ranking. Forget about it, it is almost totally irrelevant unless your pages have extremely low page speeds.

[lucy24]

Page speed, according to Google, is a tiny, tiny factor in ranking.

Isn’t that true of any one individual aspect of a site? If we could point to some specific thing and say “{feature} is a huge factor in ranking”, nobody would ever talk about anything else.

[Steven29]

"No, you cant see improvements after improving page speed. May be you think you can but the improvements are almost certainly caused by one of a million other factors."

I can't but maybe I can and if I can i'm wrong? "Page Speed" is vague and can be the TTFB, FID, page onload event and many other factors. So "Page Speed" potentially could be many tiny, tiny factors in a websites ranking.

"Isn’t that true of any one individual aspect of a site? If we could point to some specific thing and say “{feature} is a huge factor in ranking”, nobody would ever talk about anything else."

Exactly.

[RedBar]

Insofar as speed is concerned I sometimes wonder how the heck Google gets to some sites!

Literally in the past 5 minutes I was searching for a scraped image of mine, there it was very close to the top however when I went to it firstly Google advised that the page was trying to re-direct, which I allowed, but after 45 seconds or so I gave up, nothing, absolutely nothing, wtf Google?

If my images aren't there, I'm gone, yet a scraper doesn't get demoted or removed.

[Steven29]

@RedBar they are being cloaked and showing the bots like Google different content. There are many huge spam networks doing this for years and nothing is done, like the one I posted about here: [webmasterworld.com...] (search for any 3 letter combination in the past 1 hour on google and enjoy the spam!).

I suspect the same type of thing that's happening to me. Tthese websites are scraping the internet and have your image somewhere in the mix and Google is picking it up. Sure, after xxx months it may be "removed" but there will always be some that stick.

I see some of these sites with over 100,000 indexed pages!?! Why more eyes are not looking at this blows my mind.