Google to Add Page Loading Time to Quality Score

Google announced that they will be adding your Website page's loading time as a factor when determining the quality score for your Adwords campaign. In the Adwords help page, Google says this is an important factor because:

Users value ads that bring them to the information they want as efficiently as possible. A high-quality landing page should have a fast load time as well as feature unique, relevant content. Fast load times benefit advertisers as well, since users are less likely to abandon a site that loads quickly.

If you're not familiar with the quality score, but you're planning to run a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign via Adwords, get familiar with it. It's a big factor in how much you will pay for your campaign for certain keywords. A good quality score, you pay less. A poor quality score, you pay more. The quality score is also a factor that contributes to your ad placement. (More about the quality score can be found on the "What is an Adwords Quality Score" page on the Adwords help page.)

According to the Google Webmaster blog, this change will happen in the next few weeks. When it goes live, you'll see the page load time show up in the Keyword Analysis section of your Adwords account.

Until then, want to get a jump on your page's loading time? Check out Pingdom to get an analysis of your site's loading time. If you find that it takes a long time to load, Google lists some factors that contribute to a slow loading time.

If you don't get to make some enhancements to improve your loading time before the feature launches, you won't be too late. The system "re-evaluates landing pages on a regular basis", so if your loading time gets better, your quality score should improve.