Site speed not being reported accurately?

[TheIronYuppie]

We're constantly on the lookout for site speed, and Google's Webmaster tools are saying that we're really really slow (on the order of 5-15 seconds per page). But the site NEVER feels that slow, and lots of other tools say we're in the 3-5 second range. Further, we've implemented literally 100% of Google's suggestions, and all we have are ad units that now render using Googles Async ad loader, further reducing time to interactivity.

Could Google be dinging us in search results for this? Here's an example page that they said loaded in 200+ seconds (!?!)

http://hark.com/clips/kwkdqqtzsg-terran-nuclear-launch-detected

Thanks!

[caseyhen]

I'll always suggest you improve site speed but make sure you look at the ROI you can get out of it.  If you spend 40 dev hours to increase your site speed and you see no increase in rankings, thats not good in my eyes.  I'd make sure that you work with you Network Systems guy to get an accurate reflection of how faster/slow your site really it before investing a bunch of dev time.

[TheIronYuppie]

Only negatively evaluated in search results. We've seen a definite flattening of some terms, and we are trying to figure out why - speed seems to be the only thing that would/could have changed.

[caseyhen]

Negatively evaluated from Google or someone else?  My guess is that they use that number along with other user feedback from the SERPs, such as if people bounce from your page quickly.  I've worked with sites who have horrible metrics on GWT and they still ranked very high.

[TheIronYuppie]

I guess my concern is not the number - I'm MORE concerned with our site being negatively evaluated because of it. Any thoughts here?

[caseyhen]

As Keri said, those results are based on people who use the Google Toolbar.  If you are looking for a more accurate reading of site speed, I would install the new Google Analytics site speed tag which will start tracking your site speed in Google Analytics and isn't based just on people who use the toolbar.

I've found that the speed displayed in Webmaster Tools can vary widely and is something that is still very beta for Google.  I personally look at it once in a while but never report it to anyone since I don't trust it.

Casey

[TheIronYuppie]

It says "highly accurate", with thousands of data points. Is that how it works - off the Google Toolbar?

The problem is that we're a flash site, in order to play audio, and we have ads. There's just nothing we can do to get around that.

[KeriMorgret]

In that tool, there is a comment about accuracy, which is based on the data points. What does it say about accuracy? To the best of my knowledge, their site speed report is based on other users with the Google Toolbar installed. If you have only a few users with the toolbar visiting, and they're all on dialup, you could get skewed results.