Terrible Google PageSpeed ratings...for a blank website.

[forresthowie]

Dear all,
I'd really appreciate any help anyone could give me over this issue. My website was published to a place where I could test it. I used Google PageSpeed to check it and my mobile variant was getting 35/100. I deleted each variant, republished and checked the speed. Then I deleted photos on the sole remaining variant - the mobile one. Now I'm testing a blank page (of a 30 page website but with nothing on the page at all) and that page is getting a score of ...

59/100!

I'm very new to this technical side of things.

Can anyone suggest why a blank page might be getting a score this low? Is it a 'dodgy' server? I've got to call 1and1 in the morning.

The test page is

http://www.actualeducation.co.uk/test/

Many, many thanks in advance.

Yours,
Robert

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Robert, I think your'e over testing this one.

I deleted each variant, republished and checked the speed. Then I deleted photos on the sole remaining variant - the mobile one.

If you deleted each variant then you just have the desktop variant and publishing will only supply this single desktop variant. How did you delete the photos on the now non existant mobile site?

Opening you attached link doesn't load any content.

[forresthowie]

Thanks for helping.
I deleted each variant aside from the one which was made for the mobile side. I then went onto the page and deleted each image and everything else. All there is now on that webpage is a blank space. This blank space is still getting terrible pagespeed ratings. Everything I use to check page load says that this 'blank page' is a slow loading website.

I'm stumped!

[gwpriester]

Hi Robert

One mistake many of us make is to expect is to use the same content from our main variant on a mobile site. Mobile devices are slower (unless they are using a wireless connection), the pages are smaller, even a tablet, and so you need to simplify your content.

As Egg has suggested, you are probably over testing your mobile variant. Just simplify your content, make your text larger so it can be easily read, and most importantly, make sure your content is relevant to the site.

The bottom line is people are probably coming to your website for information. Make it as easy as you can for your visitor to find the content, and you will be in good shape.

Xara by default exports retina quality images for mobile devices (192dpi vs 96dpi for desktop browsers). If sharp detail is not critical, optimize all the images on your site to 96dpi. This will make the pages load faster.

Hope this is helpful!

[Egg Bramhill]

So you're loading a blank page, with no content. How would you expect a score on loading this?

[forresthowie]

Thank you so much for all the help. What's worrying me is that how does a blank wepage rate so lowly in a google official test? Isn't this going to 'rank me down' the search engines listing?

I'd have expected a blank page to hit 100/100 - not 59/100 which is what it is. Is there something 'going on in the background' that I need to do?

Thanks

[forresthowie]

I'd have expected it to be perfect because nothing was slowing it down. Surely removing an image from a site speeds up loading? If taking all the images off (and text etc) results in the page still being slow isn't this an issue?
Thanks - I really appreciate this.

[Egg Bramhill]

Whoa Robert! I seriously think you're over cooking this. You've created a webpage with no content or images, it opens in a browser with no content, just a blank page, and you're worried about the Google download speed ranking?

I can understand, having viewed you site previously, that it is image intensive. I can't remember if it's a conventional, multi-page site or a supersite. In my opinion this will effect the Google download speed ranking.

But as I say, I think your'e over egging the problem.

[forresthowie]

Whoa Robert! I seriously think you're over cooking this. You've created a webpage with no content or images, it opens in a browser with no content, just a blank page, and you're worried about the Google download speed ranking?

I can understand, having viewed you site previously, that it is image intensive. I can't remember if it's a conventional, multi-page site or a supersite. In my opinion this will effect the Google download speed ranking.

But as I say, I think your'e over egging the problem.

I'm more than happy to be told its a 'me' thing! Phew, ok I'd just done so many tests and it was coming up as slooooooow. I thought that trying to speed it up and see where the problem lay would give me an ace rating and then just work from there. Thanks for the help. PS when I did have the full site up (it's now on www.actualeducation.co.uk by the way) I'd sometimes have parts not load on my mobile - alt images showed and in some cases the coloured boxes i used behind menus wouldn't work either.

Youre right though - can't see the wood for the trees possibly!

[Boy]

On my desktop computer the site loaded very fast and on my mobile phone (with wireless) it showed pretty fast as well. You use quite some pictures which tends to slow down loading times. By the way, nice pictures and nice site.

I noticed "ma sm" written over the first picture on the Edinburgh page.