In an effort to push developers to make faster websites, Google Chrome will soon place badges on sites that load slowly.
So far, the tech giant hasn’t laid out any specifics, but it says it may showcase sites that load quickly with a green loading bar on mobile, and sites that load slowly with an icon that says, ” Loading… Usually loads slow.”
This is likely bad news for website developers who don’t want Google to place a ‘Slow’ tag on their page. That said, if it does push sites to load faster, then this is a win for consumers.
These are only examples, and Google says this will take place in a “number of forms and we plan to experiment with different options, to determine which provides the most value to our users,” in a Chromium blog post posted on November 11th.
As Google outlines in the press release, the first step is to look at the website’s historical load times and determine if it loads at a reduced pace all the time. After this, it plans to determine if sites are loading slowly because of network speeds.
Beyond the first two examples mentioned, Google says it might also showcase a website’s typical loading time in the context menu when you click on the hyperlink.
Near the end of the blog post, the company says that “Our long-term goal is to define badging for high-quality experiences, which may include signals beyond just speed. ”
In the long run, this might mean that Google will push users towards sites that run better rather than reputable websites.
Source: Google
