Google Chrome will soon identify and label websites that load slowly

Google Chrome will soon start identifying and labeling websites that load slowly. It will highlight websites that load slowly and show a message to the user which will reflect the same.

Google Chrome will soon start identifying and labeling websites that load slowly on its browser. Google in a blog post said that speed is one of the core principles of Chrome, and they want to ensure that users get the best experience on their browser. “We think the web can do better and want to help users understand when a site may load slowly, while rewarding sites delivering fast experiences,” notes the blog.

Google has indicated in the blog post that in the future Chrome will identify sites that typically load fast or slow for users with clear indicators and badges to highlight this. Google says the badging will help “identify when sites are authored in a way that makes them slow generally, looking at historical load latencies.” Chrome could also expand this identification to when a page is loading slowly because of the user’s device and network conditions.

Google says the plan to identify sites that load slowly or fast won’t be rolled out immediately, but over time and will be based on stringent conditions. The long-term goal is to “define badging for high-quality experiences, which may include signals beyond just speed,” says the blog post.

The loading screen will warn users if the website loads slowly typically. There could be a loading progress bar, which will be green if the site is fast and red if it is slow. Google Chrome is the most popular browser in the world, and if it starts shaming websites, which are slow, this could push more developers to improve the overall experience for the user. After all most developers will want the fast label for their site.

The post adds that they will ensure that those who are optimising their site to be fast, will not be labeled inconsistently from fast to slow and that they should continue efforts to optimise their experiences.

“We are being very mindful with our approach to setting the bar for what is considered a good user experience and hope to land on something that is practically achievable by all developers. We will publish updates to this plan as we approach future releases, but don’t wait to optimize your site,” adds the blog.