PageSpeed Insight tool

Website speed is more crucial than ever

If your website doesn't load quickly enough, (or worse still, doesn't load at all!) they’re likely to leave the site which may lead to them never revisiting. This makes measuring and improving site speed fundamental to web development and user experience design. One of the most popular tools used for assessing a website’s performance is PageSpeed Insights, a service provided by Google.

What is PageSpeed Insights?

PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a tool provided by Google to help web developers and site owners understand how quickly their pages load and where improvements can be made. PSI analyses a page's performance on mobile and desktop devices, providing detailed insights into aspects like load times, interactivity, and visual stability. It also suggests actionable improvements that can help boost the site's overall speed and performance.

Unlocking web performance insights

We created a tool that leverages the Google Pagespeed Insight Lighthouse API, providing a real-time leaderboard ranking of websites by their average scores across four key metrics: performance, best practices, SEO, and accessibility.

The idea behind the tool

The motivation for building this tool came from a common challenge faced by developers and website owners: keeping track of multiple websites’ performance metrics.

While Google Pagespeed Insights is an excellent tool for analyzing individual URLs, it’s difficult to monitor all client websites at once. Additionally, Pagespeed Insights doesn’t provide an overall score, making it challenging to get a holistic view of a site’s performance.

Our tool was designed to tackle these issues by offering a consolidated, real-time leaderboard that makes tracking and comparison simple and engaging.

How it works..

The Dodgems and Floss 'Page Speed Tool' works by combining data from Google Page Speed and combines it with our real-time display.

1. Integration with the Lighthouse API: The tool uses the Google Pagespeed Insight Lighthouse API to fetch detailed metrics for any website. By analysing key metrics—performance, best practices, SEO, and accessibility—the API provides a comprehensive evaluation.
2. Real-Time Leaderboard: After retrieving the scores, the tool calculates the average of these metrics for each site and ranks them on a real-time leaderboard. This visual display allows users to see how their site stacks up against others.
3. Continuous Updates: Sites can be added to the leaderboard, and scores are periodically refreshed to reflect any improvements or regressions in performance.

An advanced user experience

Having a holistic view of the performance of your site is beneficial for a number of reasons:

Comprehensive Metrics: The tool evaluates websites based on four critical factors: performance, best practices, SEO, and accessibility.

Real-Time Updates: Rankings are updated dynamically, ensuring the leaderboard reflects the latest scores.

Ease of Use: Simply input a URL to get started, and the tool handles the rest.

Engagement: The competitive nature of the leaderboard encourages site owners to optimise their websites further.

What's next? Future Upgrades

While the tool is functional, we are already planning additional features, such as:

Historical Performance Tracking: Enabling us to see trends over time.

Detailed Reports: Providing actionable recommendations based on Lighthouse suggestions.

Custom Filters: Allowing us to rank websites based on specific metrics

By using the Google Pagespeed Insight Lighthouse API, we’ve created a tool that not only simplifies performance analysis but also makes it engaging and competitive. Whether you’re a developer, business owner, or just someone interested in web performance, this tool offers valuable insights and an exciting way to track and improve website optimisation.

Give it a try and see where your website ranks!

Not reaching the leaderboard?

If you have doubts about your website setup, or you're disappointed with your site's score, arrange a call and find out how the team at D&F could help, get in touch here!