How to test your website performance

Page audits in Google Chrome (real world data)

Google Chrome has a built in website analysis tool to help you check website performance called Lighthouse.

Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. You can run it against any web page, public or requiring authentication. It has audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, SEO and more.

These audits can give you a rapid insight into what is working well on a website & areas where improvement is required.

This website isn’t perfect & I have yet to find one that is, however with 100% across all the measured areas it’s pretty good:

  • Performance
  • Progressive Web App ( a relatively new feature, more widely adopted in 2019 )
  • Accessibility
  • Best Practices
  • SEO

If you want to test your own website here’s what to do:

  • Open your website in Google Chrome
  • Right click any area on the website, and click on “inspect” or type “Ctrl+Shift+i”
  • A new panel will open, click on “Audits” and you should see a panel where you can select options.
  • The results below are for the following settings so you can compare:
    • Desktop
    • No throttling
  • This report will give lots of detail, and if you need help with the results we will be happy to help.
  • for more information go to “How to use Google Lighthouse.”

Poor results?

Sometimes Google Lighthouse is hindered by inconsistent or poor broadband speeds & WiFi connections. We have been providing our clients with Broadband for over 12 years, so if you need any help feel free to give us a call on 01472 211 924.

Testing your Broadband speed

We partner with a Which? Recommended broadband provider and have access to numerous broadband solutions for more remote locations.
I you want to talk about the service you are currently getting,  or the service you would like to receive in the future, please call us on 01472 211 924

To test your broadband speed you can use the free service at www.speedtest.net

Example results

This website

black with fireworks just means
all 100% – thanks Google!

cplinternet.net website performance test using Lighthouse

Our old website

cplinternet.net site performance Before being optimised

www.google.co.uk

Google PageSpeed Insights (lab data)

PageSpeed Insights (PSI) reports on the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.

PSI provides both lab and field data about a page. Lab data is useful for debugging performance issues, as it is collected in a controlled environment. However, it may not capture real-world bottlenecks. Field data is useful for capturing true, real-world user experience – but has a more limited set of metrics. See How To Think About Speed Tools for more information on the 2 types of data.

Test your site here:

Go to the PageSpeed insights page and test your own site – [Try PageSpeed Insights]

Beware the data

The data given from these two tools is often used by companies to scare users into having their websites rebuilt, which is not always what is needed.

If you are unsure about these reports or how they affect your website, then call us today on 01472 211 924

Example results

This website (Mobile)

cpltest pagespeed mobile

This website (Desktop)