Google Chrome to penalize and label pages with long loading times
Loading times are an important factor for every internet user. Now, the American IT company Google wants to expose slow web pages with its Chrome browser.
Ing. Manuel Studener
Loading times are an important factor for every internet user. Now, the American IT company Google wants to expose slow web pages with its Chrome browser.
In November, Google made headlines among web developers with a new feature. They intend to mark all pages that have long loading times in their Chrome browser, thereby forcing page operators to optimize their sites.
Google already did this several years ago with HTTPS encryption. They worsened the ranking in Google Search to force operators to switch to HTTPS. With success! Something similar is now planned with loading times. The company has not yet commented on what exactly this might look like. A possible system could be a traffic light system to mark long page loading times and a penalty in Google Search.
Of course, this is also to Google’s advantage, because if they now force all web developers and site operators to optimize loading times from the start, Google does not primarily have to optimize the performance of Google Chrome.
One thing is certain: Google has been leading with the Chrome browser for years and thus also has the power to determine what happens on the internet. As a web agency, one naturally also looks to the Chrome browser, which has been unavoidable for years. Microsoft is no longer the number one in the browser market for a long time, and the new Edge browser is not really picking up speed. Thus, Google clearly remains at the top.
When the new labeling in the Chrome browser will be visible is currently still unknown. The company could start as early as the beginning of 2020. Possibly, the loading bar will then provide information about the efficiency of the loading time with a changed color representation. We are excited and will keep an eye on the topic.