Introduction to Lighthouse

A well-liked tool for evaluating the effectiveness of websites and web pages is called Lighthouse. It was created by Google and is offered as a Chrome extension and command-line interface.

The ability of Lighthouse to run a speed test on a website or web page is one of its primary capabilities. The duration it takes for a page to load, its size, and the quantity of server requests issued are all things that this speed test examines and can have an impact on how well a website performs.

Speed Testing with Lighthouse

Lighthouse can be used in a variety of ways to measure speed. Utilizing the Chrome extension, which can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store, is one choice. After installing the extension, you can do a speed test by clicking the Lighthouse icon in the toolbar of your browser and choosing the “Generate report” option.

Utilizing the Lighthouse command-line interface gives you even another choice and enables you to do a speed test directly from the terminal. This option is helpful if you want to integrate Lighthouse into your development workflow or automate the process of testing the functionality of your website.

Lighthouse performance indicators

Lighthouse offers a variety of different performance indicators, such as the time to first paint and the time to interactive, in addition to its speed test capabilities. These measurements can aid you in determining which parts of your website might benefit from optimization in order to enhance its overall functionality.

Google has created two tools that may be used to evaluate the speed of websites and web pages: PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse. They differ in a few ways, though. PageSpeed Insights concentrates on making suggestions for enhancing a website’s performance, whereas Lighthouse offers a more thorough evaluation of a website’s performance.

Furthermore, whereas PageSpeed Insights focuses on assessing a website’s speed on desktop computers, Lighthouse can be used to test a website’s performance across a variety of devices and browsers.

Overall, Lighthouse is an effective tool for evaluating the functionality of websites and web pages. It may be used to speed test websites and find places that might benefit from optimization in order to enhance their overall functionality.

Lighthouse is a useful tool that can assist you in achieving your performance objectives, whether you are a developer wanting to optimize your own website or a business owner looking to enhance the performance of your company’s website.

Comparison with PageSpeed

Google provides PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse as two tools for measuring how quickly websites and web pages load. Although both tools have their uses, they take different approaches. PageSpeed Insights concentrates on offering suggestions for enhancing a website’s performance, whereas Lighthouse gives a more thorough analysis of a website’s performance.

Furthermore, whereas Lighthouse can be used to assess a website’s performance across a variety of devices and browsers, PageSpeed Insights primarily measures a website’s speed on desktop PCs.

How Can I speed up my website?

You may speed up your website in a number of ways, including:

Enable compression: Compressing your website’s resources, such as its photos and CSS files, can make them smaller and faster to load. These resources can be compressed using programs like Gzip.
Optimize your picture files: Huge photos might make your web pages much larger and slow down your website. Images can be optimized by being compressed, saved in the proper image file format, and resized correctly.
Reduce HTTP requests: Every time a browser asks your website for a resource (such an image or stylesheet), an HTTP request is made. Keeping these queries to a minimum can help your page load more quickly.
Use a content delivery network (CDN) to speed up your website. A CDN is a network of servers spread out throughout the globe that can supply visitors with static resources (such images and stylesheets) from a place that is closer to them.
Enable browser caching to save resources from your website in a user’s browser so they won’t have to be downloaded again when the user returns to your website. For recurring visitors, this can speed up your website.
Reduce the use of external resources: External resources, such third-party widgets or typefaces, might slow down your website by increasing the amount of HTTP requests. Using these resources as little as possible can help to improve the speed of your website.
Code optimization can help to speed up your website and reduce page size. Examples of code optimization techniques include CSS and JavaScript minification.
You may increase the performance of your website and give your users an improved user experience by putting these and other optimization tactics into practice.

Alternatives to Lighthouse or Pagespeed

There are several alternative tools that can be used to evaluate the performance of websites and web pages:

WebPageTest

Using this tool, you may evaluate a website’s functionality across various geographic regions, devices, and browsers. WebPageTest offers suggestions for improvement as well as comprehensive information regarding page load times.

GTmetrix

Using data on page load times, file sizes, and the quantity of HTTP requests performed, GTmetrix analyzes a website’s performance and offers optimization suggestions.

Pingdom

Pingdom enables you to examine a website’s functionality from several angles and offers comprehensive data on page load speeds along with suggestions for enhancement.

Siteimprove

Siteimprove is a comprehensive platform for website optimization that offers tools for SEO, accessibility, and content optimization in addition to tools for testing a website’s performance.

YSlow

YSlow is a (old) browser add-on that evaluates a website’s performance and offers suggestions for improvement based on industry best practices for website optimization. There are versions of it for a number of well-known browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

DareBoost

This application enables you to evaluate the functionality of a website and offers a thorough report with suggestions for enhancement. Additionally, it provides a variety of other analysis capabilities, including SEO and security analysis. Dareboost has been discontinued and replaced by a new product of Contentsquare.

Why website performance is important for SEO?

Due to its potential to impact both user experience and search engines’ capacity to crawl and index your website, website speed is a crucial component of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Following are some particular examples of how website speed may affect SEO:

User experience

A website’s user experience can be enhanced by faster loading speeds, which may result in more engagement and customer satisfaction. Bounce rates, which search engines may use as a ranking component, can be decreased as a result.

Efficiency of crawlers

Search engines use crawlers to find and index newly added and updated web pages. Your website’s speed may affect how quickly these crawlers can access and index your content, which could hurt how visible you are in search results.

Mobile ranking

Google uses mobile-first indexing, which implies that indexing and ranking are done mostly based on your website’s mobile version. Your website’s performance on mobile devices could have an adverse effect on how you rank in mobile search results.

How to read and interpret a Google Lighthouse report?

Access the report: You may access a Lighthouse report by launching the command-line interface for Lighthouse or by using the Lighthouse Chrome extension.
Examine the categories: Performance, SEO, Accessibility, and Best Practices are some of the areas into which Lighthouse reports are split. Each category addresses a particular aspect of the functionality of your website.
Verify the results: Each category gets a score that represents how well your website performed overall in that field. A higher score denotes stronger performance, whereas a lower score highlights weaknesses.
Examine the areas for improvement: Lighthouse offers a list of suggestions for each category. You can take care of these problems to boost your website’s functionality.
Check for errors: Lighthouse may spot coding or configuration errors on your website. The performance of your website might be enhanced by repairing these problems.
Make use of the diagnostic data: Lighthouse offers thorough information about the problems it has found, as well as suggestions for how to resolve them. Utilize this knowledge to better understand the problems and take appropriate action to resolve them.

Overall, Lighthouse is an effective tool for evaluating the functionality of websites and web pages. It may be used to speed test websites and find places that might benefit from optimization in order to enhance their overall functionality.

Lighthouse is a useful tool that can assist you in achieving your performance objectives, whether you are a developer wanting to optimize your own website or a business owner looking to enhance the performance of your company’s website.

How to Improve Your Website Performance with Lighthouse

Website Performance test and optimization with Lighthouse

Introduction to Lighthouse

Speed Testing with Lighthouse

3 Website Plans

Lighthouse performance indicators

Comparison with PageSpeed

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