If you have visited Google’s PageSpeed Insights within the last day, you may have noticed a difference to the layout. Google has announced that the tool will now be using Lighthouse as its analysis engine.
The update clears up any confusion that developers may have had on previous versions. Before the update, Google used different analysis engines that supplied different recommendations to developers. By only using Lighthouse, this will avoid any confusion and the same performance audits and recommendations will be available to developers everywhere, including the web, command line and Chrome User Experience Report.
However, it seems that it may not just be a redesign. People have found that their mobile sites that had scores over 90 have dropped to the 20s and 30s range.
There are four sections that PageSpeed Insights supplies information.
Field Data
Field Data displays real-world performance metrics for a page. This section shows developers how a page is performing compared to other pages in the Chrome User Experience Report over the last 30 days.
Origin Summary
Origin Summary shows a developer the speed of all the pages that are served from this page compared to other pages in the Chrome User Experience Report over the last 30 days.
Lab Data
Labdata analyses a page using Lighthouse and then simulates how it will load on a mobile device. It then gives a performance score between 0-100 based on a set of performance metrics.
Opportunities
The Opportunities section is what it says on the tin. This section provides developers with recommendations to improve a page’s speed and gives an estimation of the page speed gained.
Diagnostics
Diagnostics supplies more information about the performance of a page as well as other recommendations to improve a page’s speed.
Passed Audits
The final section, Passed Audits, is useful as it tells developers the audits that the page has passed on.
The release notes for Version 5 can be found here.
PageSpeed Insights can be found here.
If you would like to discuss more regarding PageSpeed Insights, please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our team.
