Google has announced that it’ll start adding ‘fast page’ certified labels to fast loading webpages within the Chrome app on Android when it updates to v85.
The award of the label to sites is based on Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics that judge web pages on page load time, responsiveness, how stable content is, and the overall user experience.
Google said:
“The changes that site owners make to improve on these aspects work towards making the web more delightful for users across all web browsers. Investing in these critical user-centric metrics helps to drive usability improvements for users and helps businesses see increased engagement.”
When the update rolls out you will only be able tell if a page is considered fast by long pressing a page link and seeing if it says ‘fast page’ next to a tick icon.
But Google told The Verge that the long-term plan is to start putting fast pages higher in search results as one of the metrics considered when presenting links. This might mean, theoretically, that slow loading pages with good content will get ranked lower as Google considers them a worse user experience.
Labels are now live in the Chrome 85 beta but you can try it out now on older versions by going to chrome://flags in Chrome on Android and enabling “Context menu performance info and remote hint fetching”.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.