• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 12, 2019

Google said that in the future it may identify sites that load fast or slowly for users by “badging” -- a term that Addy Osmani, Ben Greenstein, and Bryan McQuade used in a Chromium blog, which refers to onscreen cues and clues.

Badging aims to identify when sites are slow by analyzing historical load latencies. Another additional step would identify when the cause is the device and network rather than the site.  

“We are building out speed badging in close collaboration with other teams exploring labelling the quality of experiences at Google,” wrote the trio in a blog post. “We believe this will ensure that if you are optimizing your site to be fast, your site will not be inconsistently badged from one surface to another.”

Early work will analyze Chrome data such as loading screen, loading progress bar and context-menu for links. Some of that data could provide insight into typical site speeds to make visitors aware before they navigate from the search engine to the site. 

The idea is to reward companies for the work they do on their websites. The identifiers will give site visitors more information about the site’s performance in hopes of encouraging more sites to give consumers the best possible experience. 

The plan to identify fast or slow sites will gradually roll out based on increasingly stringent criteria.

The long-term goal is to define badging for high-quality experiences and site performance, which could include signals beyond just speed. 

To evaluate and check performance, Google offers a few tools. PageSpeed Insights, an online tool that shows speed field data for sites, alongside suggestions for common optimizations that can improve it.

Lighthouse, a lab tool, provides personalized advice on how to improve websites across performance and other best practices.