On Friday Google launched a new tool aimed at business owners to know if their mobile websites are good enough. Actually, it’s like a Swiss army knife where it determines mobile-friendliness, mobile speed and desktop speed all at once.
This includes the mobile web, including smartphones and tablets. Since mobile searches surpassed desktop searches last fall for the first time, Google is letting everyone know how critical this is now. Also, we know that since it’s their tool and a big part of their ranking your website is page load speed, we must comply.
The company is introducing a way for small businesses to test their website’s ability to perform across devices. The analysis gives websites a score highlighting three key metrics: mobile-friendliness (quality of the user experience), mobile speed (how long a mobile site it takes to load) and desktop speed (how long the desktop version takes to load).
As you can see in the image above, the tool is extremely simple where you just put in your website address, hit enter and let Google judge your site
According to Google, 9 out of 10 people leave a mobile website if it isn’t performing to their standards. That could mean the difference between coming in to visit or moving on to the next site.
“Your customers live online,” according to a blog post published today. “When they need information or want to find a nearby store or product, they grab the nearest device. On average, people check their phones more than 150 times a day, and more searches occur on mobile phones than computers. But if a potential customer is on a phone, and a site isn’t easy to use, they’re five times more likely to leave.”
While this free offering could be a nice gesture in line with Google’s old slogan of “Don’t Be Evil,” it’s also yet another sign of the search engine giant’s increasing focus on the mobile web. And now that more than 50 percent of all searches now come from mobile devices, the success of mobile websites—even small ones—is more important than ever before.
According to research from Yodle and Research Now, about 52 percent of around 400 small businesses surveyed said they’ve optimized their websites for the mobile web. However, according to eMarketer, a separate survey by RBC Capital Marketers found that around 40 percent of small businesses still haven’t done anything.
Of course, we immediately tested our site and while mobile usability was very high, the mobile and desktop speed sucked. We were rather shocked since we hear from so many people how quickly our site loads, plus on Google’s other speed tests, it ranks rather high.  So we tested on sites that you would expect to test high like Google and Apple.
Guess what? They tested poorly too.
Google.com scored ‘poor’ on Desktop Speed while Apple.com scored ‘poor’ on Mobile Speed.  Google.com.au tested even worse than google.com. Even CNN, who prides themselves on having a very speedy site tested 50 and 50 on Mobile Speed and Desktop speed.
We tested on over 50 top sites, including the New York Times and everyone is ranking pretty closely with Mobile and Desktop speed leading us to wonder if Big G has a few more tweaks it need to make. Sadly, most site owners will probably freak out when they see low test scores so we’re just making you all aware that you’re not alone in the low score department.
You site right even be ranking even higher than CNN or The New York Times. Hopefully, Google will realize that something is amiss and make some changes or just let it freak people out as they do love giving everyone a good scare now and then. Usually it’s in the form of a Penguin but this time it’s a tool.