Why does the website load slowly?

Load time is the first impression, before the headline and the pictures. A slow site feels like a company that does not answer the phone.

Google measures speed and uses it when comparing pages. It rarely decides everything, but it decides between two that look alike.

The slowness usually sits in large images, heavy plugins and a cheap host. Rarely in the text itself.

• Shrink the images. A photo straight from the phone weighs several megabytes. On the web it should be a fraction. Most image tools can save for web.
• Remove plugins and scripts you do not use. Every plugin is code that has to load before the page shows.
• If the site has sat on the same host for many years, it is worth asking about a faster plan, or moving.
• Measure again after every change so you can see what made a difference.

I build static pages without a heavy plugin system, and the images are sized in the build. See what it costs.

The measurement is simpler than it sounds. The checker asks for the page's code and times the answer. Under 1.5 s is green, between 1.5 s and 3.5 s amber, over 3.5 s red. The check carries 10 of 100 points.

The common case is a site answering in amber without the owner noticing anything. At the office the site is quick, because the browser saved it yesterday. The customer clicking the link in Google for the first time gets no such head start.

The cause is almost never the text. It is the images, often uploaded straight from a phone without being resized, and the plugins in the tool that have to be fetched before anything shows. And if the site sits on the cheapest plan at the host, it shares a server with many others, which shows in the answer.

The limits are generous on purpose. The checker does not run from Sweden, so a few tenths are pure network distance, and whatever loads after the code is not counted at all. A page can therefore feel slower to the customer than the figure suggests.

How fast is fast enough?

The checker's limits are 1.5 s for green and 3.5 s for red, and it only measures the time to the page's code. If you are under the limit and the page still feels slow, it is the images and scripts loading afterwards that weigh it down.

Why does the site feel fast to me but not in the measurement?

Your browser saved the page from your last visit. The customer arriving from Google fetches everything for the first time.

Can I do anything myself without touching the code?

Yes. Swap the heaviest images for smaller versions and switch off plugins you do not use. That usually gives the most, and it is done in the tool's normal interface.