When I log into my Google Webmaster Tools account and check on the page speed it tells me 68% of sites are faster than mine However, when I run Page Speed Test on FireFox / Firebug it reports back in a very positive manner: I've told GWMT my geographic target is the UK but am left confused thinking they must be spidering me from the US and not taking account the geographics. In other words, my site is fast as hell but Google say it's slow. What can I do to convince them it rocks?
How fast is your server? It could also be your server throttling Google bot, so a user it's quick for Google it's slow, there is a firefox tool call usera gent swithcer allows you to load the site pretenting to be the google bot.
I'm with Rackspace on a performance bit of kit and there should be no throttling for Gbot, As for User Agent Switcher, it's something I'm well aware of thanks as I run www.detectmobilebrowsers.mobi which would have been impossible to create without such an awesome tool! Thanks
Google uses the toolbar installed with advanced settings enables on peoples PCs to calculate speed. Therefore, if you get lots of people with slow connections accessing your site, you will get a slow time in Google. Not fair, but true. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=158541
Yup, that sucks! If they'd send me more UK than US visitors it would be a more accurate reflection..... Thanks
Guess they want to use real examles of data, but if all your users are on a slow connection then it's going to look bad, for example of your site is targeting a county with poor speeds.
I can totally understand why it's based on real users but it doesn't take into account the geographic target of the visitor, after all, for me I don't care what it's like for folks in Australia or the US as I can't sell to them, I do however care for those in the UK, hence hosting here. It would be nice for Google's Webmaster Tools geo setting to only use data from users in the target country set, that way it's still user data but geographically speaking more relevant. I think that would make more sense, yes?
I agree, so often Google use international data for local decisions, you may have seen some of the problems with the uk serps showing American and aussy results. Many SEO's have concluded it's down to google using search data from other countries. To read more search google for "Is This Google's UK Glitch? | Shark SEo"