New research unveils significant disparities in website loading speeds – could your site lagged compared to competitors?

While there’s an overall enhancement in website loading times, the progress is uneven.

Speedier websites are gaining traction, especially in developed nations.

Nevertheless, despite advancements, certain websites continue to lag, impacting user experience for many.

Website loading times are on a gradual uptrend, yet a recent study highlights significant discrepancies in performance across websites and geographic regions.

Conducted by web monitoring company DebugBear, the study analyzed data from Google’s Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), which gathers real-world metrics from millions of websites.

According to the report, the average time for a website to load its main page content during a typical visit is 1.3 seconds, measured by Google’s Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric, marking the point when the main content element becomes visible. While this median LCP time suggests a reasonably swift experience, the data reveals a broad spectrum of loading performances:

• On 25% of mobile websites, visitors endure waits exceeding 2.1 seconds for the main content to appear.
• The slowest 1% of websites require over 5.7 seconds for an average page load on mobile.
• The slowest 10% of websites subject 10% of users to wait over 5 seconds for LCP on mobile.
• Nearly 1% of mobile page loads demand almost 20 seconds before the main content materializes.

“Even on a fast website, some percentage of page views will be slow,” notes the study.

Read on for a more in-depth examination of the study and to gauge how your website’s speed compares to others.

Speed Disparities Across Sites: A Deep Dive

The data exposes significant disparities in site speeds across various user experiences, devices, and geographical locations:

• Desktop sites boast a swifter loading time with a median Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) of 1.1 seconds, compared to 1.4 seconds for mobile.
• While 25% of mobile page loads achieve LCP within 1 second, 10% surpass the 4-second mark.
• In the Central African Republic, a typical mobile LCP stands at 9.2 seconds (75th percentile), contrasting with countries like Sweden, Slovenia, Japan, and South Korea, where 75th percentile mobile LCPs clock in under 1.7 seconds.
• The report highlights that “Differences in network connections and device CPU speed mean that visitors in different countries experience the web differently.”

Additionally, the study uncovers a correlation between site popularity and speed. The median LCP on the top 1000 sites is 1.1 seconds, compared to 1.4 seconds for the top 10 million sites.

Sustained Progress Unfolds

DebugBear’s analysis underscores a continual enhancement in website speed across diverse device categories in recent years, notwithstanding the discrepancies. Other loading metrics, such as First Contentful Paint, note similar advancements.

The report affirmed that “while changes to the LCP definition may have influenced the data, the First Contentful Paint metric, which is more stable and clearly defined, has also shown improvement.”

These improvements can be attributed to faster devices and networks, enhanced website optimization practices, and upgrades in the Chrome browser.

The study’s principal discovery emphasizes the consistent enhancement of page speed. Nonetheless, it also highlights the broad spectrum of experiences observed in 2024.

As DebugBear summarizes, “A typical visit to a typical website is swift, yet in your daily browsing, you encounter both slow and fast-loading sites.”

The Significance of SEJ: An Insightful Inquiry

This study serves as an annual assessment to gauge the evolution of web loading performance.

In recent times, Google has underscored the importance of page load speeds and its Core Web Vitals metrics as measures to promote enhanced user experiences.

Furthermore, speed influences search rankings, although the exact extent of its impact as a ranking signal remains a subject of debate.

Unlocking Opportunities for Improvement

This study offers valuable insights that can empower SEO professionals to advocate for prioritizing page speed within their organizations.

This report highlights that even top-performing websites may have a portion of visitors experiencing suboptimal speeds. Utilize the study as a benchmark to assess how your website stacks up against others. If you need help determining where to begin, consider examining the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) times in the Chrome User Experience Report.

If a segment of your audience consistently experiences load times exceeding the 2.1-second threshold for mobile, as outlined in this study, it may be prudent to prioritize front-end optimization initiatives.

For websites catering to an international audience, segmenting page speed data by country can provide valuable insights. Identifying geographic areas with slower load times can guide performance budgeting and content delivery network (CDN) strategies.

It’s crucial to remember that optimizing performance is a collaborative effort between SEO professionals and developers. Working together ensures comprehensive and practical performance optimization efforts.

If navigating these complexities feels overwhelming, consider exploring our monthly SEO packages. Our team can provide the assistance you need to optimize your website’s performance effectively.