Page Load speed, does it matter? Yes. It does now.

Google has announced this month that page load speed should be a part of the overall optimisation of a website. Why…? Because it has a direct impact on usability. While Google has declared that relevant content still dictates the patterns for ranking well in search, it has placed more emphasis on putting the user first. Latest stats show a higher page abandonment rate for websites that take longer to load. For the record, the average load time for most websites currently sits at 1.4 seconds. So… How fast does your page load? Here’s a nice little tool that you might find useful:

http://code.google.com/speed/

Keep in mind that this download is only for Firefox users, but if you love to play around with browser tools (we sure do) then you’ll enjoy this. By the way, if you don’t have Firebug yet you should get it here – it will change your life forever!

Enjoy!