Google Speed Update Will Only Affect the Slowest Sites, Google Says

We’ve covered the Google Speed Update several times already, including its gradual scale for slow pages, but Google’s latest clarification is worth passing on. As expected, the Speed Update, due in the coming days or weeks, will only affect the slowest websites.

Is your website already one of the fastest in your industry? Do you get strong scores in Google’s PageSpeed Insights and on testing tools like GTmetrix? You can always keep improving your scores (that’s always good for user experience), but those tweaks won’t change your rankings in Google. John Mueller, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, recently explained on Twitter that only the slowest sites stand to gain from this algorithm update by making the right improvements.

Google’s Speed Update Confirmed for July 2018

Besides clarifying which sites the Speed Update affects, John Mueller confirmed that Google is still aiming to roll it out in July 2018. In his July 3, 2018, tweet, he summed it up: this “only affects the slowest sites,” those sites can improve gradually, and if your site is reasonably fast, small tweaks won’t change anything.

Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see whether your site benefits from the update. Think your site is too slow? Our team can help you find out what’s holding it back. Our guide to website speed optimization is a good place to start.

Where Things Stand in 2026

Google rolled out the Speed Update for mobile searches in July 2018. Page speed was later folded into the page experience signals, built around the Core Web Vitals, and Google’s guide to its ranking systems now lists the page speed system as retired. On March 12, 2024, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced First Input Delay (FID) as the Core Web Vitals metric for responsiveness.

Is Your Website Too Slow?

Référenceur is a French-speaking digital marketing agency from Belgium and Luxembourg, and we work with U.S. businesses remotely to make their websites faster and easier to use. Get a free assessment.

Featured image source: Think with Google.