At the beginning of June, Google launched a new tool which will become a useful element of every day work for a number webmasters, web developers, UX designers, SEOs and all of those interested in online technical optimisation. It is called Mobile Website Speed Testing Tool and was released as part of the ‘Think with Google’ project (being a decent source of knowledge on the digital trends by the way).
Current Google Web Test Tools
For many months, a lot of people involved in web design and optimisation have been using two basic Google tools (which you can use without logging in to your Google Account):
- PageSpeed Insights – this supplies the detailed information on the website speed issues and which elements can be improved (it also gives you the basic renders of your page);
- Mobile Friendliness Test – which tells you if a tested page is mobile friendly. Not so long ago Google released a new version of this tool that gives more detailed information on what could be improved in terms of mobile friendliness (it can be found here).
The above are very useful because of their clarity and work speed; additionally – they are available to everyone, free of charge, being, in fact, one of the first steps of a website’s online presence for technical audit. Emphasising User Experience issues, they correspond strictly with the overall Google vision of the 21st century web: pro-user and cross-device friendly.
Now these two tools, although still available online, have been merged into a multi-tasking instrument available in the thinkwitgoogle.com domain.
Test My Site (New Think with Google Tool)
When you enter the Test My Site Tool page, all you need to do is to enter your website address and submit it with the TEST NOW button. After a while your site’s test results are ready to be reviewed. You recieve information on the three key indicators of your websites performance, which are:
- Mobile Friendliness;
- Mobile Speed;
- Desktop Speed.
Every single factor is presented as a score on the 0-100 scale, which is a basic transposition of the scores you could get when using the PageSpeed Insights. The only difference is that you get a score for your websites mobile-friendliness too, which has not been available anywhere at Google until now. In addition, you get a split between different sections of your test. Each of the factors has its own, dedicated report containing a list of the issues and rules that are passed, considered to be fixed or should be fixed.
Moreover, if you would like to be sent a full report on your website performance, you can submit your e-mail and Google will deliver all the information specified in the Website Testing Tool. Pretty handy, isn’t it?
Google failing itself
The interesting thing is that many websites owned by Google did not pass the Think with Google Test the way everybody would expect them to have done.
When the tool was launched in the first week of June, some people were eager to challenge Google and other leading websites on today web. What surfaced was that most of them are not up to standard enough to be flagged as green in all of the three sections featured in the test. But most surprising was that the Think with Google website in itself did not pass the test, gaining 59 in Mobile Speed and 66 in Desktop Speed (which was marked as Poor). Also, other big players, such as Amazon, Facebook or Mashable, were not decent when checking their speed and mobile powers.
If you are interested in other results, you can read this article.
There should also be an update here, since from the beginning of the month some things have permanently changed… Apparently, the Google developers decided to speed up with their work and the current Think with Google results are better:
Wrap-up
We consider this test to be a really useful tool because all are able to access the details upon which elements need to be improved. They are listed in simple terms, so even people who are not experienced on the digital techniques should not have any issues understanding what they (or their developers) should do to build a more user-friendly site.
The Mobile Website Speed Testing Tool from Think with Google is not a revolution, but it will undoubtedly be used in the future by all.
