There are lots of online website speed checkers and most of them just basically tell you how long it takes to load the entire website, from start to finish. This in iteself does not really give you enough insight into what’s going on. There are a lot of circumstances that factor into your overall website speed and as such, you will need to zero in on each and see what’s going on. In this article, we will share with you a few online tools and resources that you can use to access the speed of your website.
Basics Of Website Speed Science
Before we get started with the website speed check tools, we need to understand the science behind website speed. Website speed is dependent on a huge variety of factors. We have broken down these factors in two, namely:
1. Your Server Speed
Think of your server speed as the engine of your website. The speed of your server will be determined by the performance and location of your web host. Think of your website in terms of a racing car. Obviously, you would want your car’s engine to be as fast as possible. Your car can have the best and modern bodywork but without the core speed of the engine, you’re going to lose the race! The same applies to your website! Your core server speed is what should matter the most,
2. Loading All The Data (images, web design, code, plugins, media)
The second thing we look at when it comes to the speed of a website is the time taken to load all website data. This is all the data that your website has to load up and show visitors. This means if your website is filled with large images, complicated code, and intricate designs, it takes a lot longer to load up all the data.
Connection Speed
Your internet connection speed directly affects the speed at which any website loads. If a website is being viewed via a slow connection speed, no matter how well optimized the website is, it’s just going to take longer.
Server/Hosting
Your Web Host company and the server it chooses to place your website on can have a major impact on the speed at which your website loads for visitors. If resources on the server are not enough, the load speed for the website will be slow everyone. In as much as shared hosting is the most economical choice for many small websites, it is not the best solution for all. One of the options for larger websites to look at are virtual private servers, or VPS, which provide the cost efficiency of shared hosting, but the ability to control server resources like a dedicated IP address.
If you have traffic coming from all over the world, you may want to consider investing in a Web Host that has the technology and resources of pulling all of your site’s content from the server closest to the visitor, to reduce load time, since the data doesn’t have to travel as far.
Website Data Size
A website that has too many images will make the overall content size increase and also negatively affect the load times even you have a good server. Therefore, you should avoid using large image sizes as possible, and combine steps to optimize images as the right way to use on your website.
Plugins
Plugins that are installed on your website have different functions and features. Some make database calls while others load front-end assets. The plugins that make a lot of database queries and require a lot of assets to load will slow down your load time. When done properly, you won’t notice much of a difference in your load time, but if there are several plugins inundating the server with HTTP requests, then you will see a negative effect on user experience.
If you want to see how your choice of plugins is affecting your page load time, check the files the plugins are loading. Load your website. Use the “Inspect” feature in Google Chrome or the “Inspect Element” feature in Firefox to open the developers tools panel. Click the “Network” tab, and reload your website. As it reloads, you’ll be able to see how your browser is loading each file.
Alternatively, you can use something like GTmetrix or Pingdom to learn what’s going on when your site loads. You’ll also be able to see how many files are loaded, and how much time they took to load. This way you can see if a particular plugin is hogging up resources and look for another option to accomplish the same function.
Browser
The browser you’re using can affect the speed at which websites load. Older versions of browsers may struggle to load certain assets and code because they’re not compatible. If you don’t have your browser set to cache certain items from websites you visit often, you may experience slower page loading speeds. For best results, make sure you are always using the most up-to-date version of your favorite browser. If you don’t have it set to update automatically, make sure you check periodically to ensure you’re running the most current software version.
PC Cache
The computer used to access the website can also have an effect on website speed. The cache on your computer functions to store the information you’ve recently used, so it can be accessed quickly. The cache stores items from the websites you visit to your hard drive. When you revisit the website, the data is already stored, allowing the website to load faster. If you clear your cache, you may notice sites that used to load quickly take a bit longer to load again. If your computer itself is slow because of RAM issues or you’re running too many processes at once, you may also notice slower page load times.
Traffic Volume
Many websites have a set amount of bandwidth. This refers to the amount of data transferred over a certain period of time – typically a month. If you’ve got high traffic volume, that’s a good sign, but if you don’t have a host with the bandwidth that can accommodate that, you’ll not only risk a slower website speed, but a complete shut down until your period renews, or you upgrade your plan. If Google paid for bandwidth costs, YouTube alone would cost them billions of dollars a month. Add to it all the other properties they have, and it’s a truly astronomical number.
Conclusion
In this article, we aim at sharing with you more about the ability to assess the speed of a website, also about the website speed depends on certain factors. Hopefully, after this article, you will learn how to check the exact speed of the website.