Page Speed
Page speed describes how quickly a page loads and becomes usable for a visitor. It affects conversion rates directly and rankings indirectly through Core Web Vitals. Most of the available gains come from images, server response time, render-blocking resources and third-party scripts.
Why it matters for your rankings
Speed is a conversion issue first and a ranking issue second. Every additional second before a page is usable costs measurable revenue, and that effect is far larger than the ranking benefit for most sites.
The pattern is consistent across audits: teams optimise code while a 3MB hero image and eleven marketing tags do the real damage. Third-party scripts are the most common culprit and the least examined, because each one was added by a different team for a different reason and nobody owns the total. Lab tools such as Lighthouse are useful for diagnosis but do not determine rankings. Google uses field data from real Chrome users, which is why a perfect lab score can coexist with a failing Core Web Vitals report.
How to check it on your site
Start with field data
Search Console's Core Web Vitals report reflects real users. Lighthouse is for diagnosis, not for judging whether you pass.
Audit third-party scripts
List every external script and ask who owns it and what it earns. Chat widgets, heatmaps and old tags are usually removable.
Fix images first
Correct dimensions, WebP or AVIF format and compression typically deliver the largest single improvement.
Check server response time
Time to First Byte above 600ms limits everything downstream, and no front-end work can compensate for it.