Google: "Fast is better than slow"

19th June 2008

Search advertising giant Google is set to incorporate page load time into the Quality Score given to keywords.

Heather Lane wrote on Inside AdWords that advertisers can improve their Quality Score by working on load time, as landing pages are regularly evaluated by the team.

Ms Lane noted on the blog that conversion rates may suffer due to slow landing page load times, as users are more likely to abandon the process.

Meanwhile, the user experience of a site is improved by quickly-loading pages, she added.

"Keywords with landing pages that load slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids," Ms Lane explained.

In related news, comScore has just released its US webpage rankings for May 2008, which name Google as the number one site, reaching 143.4 million users.