Argos tops online webpage download speed survey

Tweaked online page download times equals better ROI says Greenlight

Argos tops website download speed survey

In a 'website landing page load' study released today by UK-based independent search marketing agency Greenlight, Argos.co.uk came out top.

The survey looked at 100 popular websites across clothing retail, consumer electronics, finance and travel, chosen from Greenlight's independent sector reports. These reports look at the most visible websites in Google natural and paid search across various industry sectors.

Four per cent of the sites tested had page load speeds slower than the acceptable threshold set by Google, beyond which the advertiser may see increased click costs, said Greenlight.

Three per cent of the sites had average page load speeds of over eight seconds, a threshold at which users are likely to abandon a site.

The top five sites were Argos, River Island, Holiday.co.uk, Fool.co.uk, and Comet, in that order. Greenlight timed one download page from a top high street electronics retailer at over 15 seconds.

Greenlight chief operating officer Andreas Pouros said: "Having a slow page load speed affects advertisers paid search performance. The problem will be compounded further if Google decides to use latency in its natural search algorithms too."

Pouros indicated ways in which businesses could attempt to fix bad page download speeds, he said: "It's worth having a look at the code on your site. Some firms' web pages are patched together with legacy code which is old and cumbersome. Secondly review your load-balancing strategies. If you're a big multinational, thinks about running multiple servers in multiple locations."

"This is not rocket science," added Pouros, "It's all basic Web 1.0 technology."