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How much faster must a website load in order to be perceived faster than another website?
For a positive user experience, a website should load in two or at most three seconds. Based on what cognitive psychology tells us, a website should ideally load in less than one second!
What is perceived load time?
“Speed” can oftentimes become a vague term, but when discussing bounce rates one of the most important facets is what we like to call perceived load time. This refers to how quickly the page renders content in front of a user, or more specifically, the DOM’s ready time.
Why is it important to know page load time?
Page load time is a key performance metric for any website to help ensure a positive user experience and customer retention. Additionally, it’s been shown to influence a site’s search engine rankings. Web page load time begins when a site visitor first initiates a request and stops when the page’s entire content is displayed within their browser.
How does perceived performance affect the user experience?
According to Ilya Grigorik from Google, perceived performance is dependent on the expected performance, the user experience, and the actual loading time. It doesn’t make a big difference to the user if the site is displayed in one second, or in 0.8 seconds.
Three key factors determine TTFB: network latency, server load time and server processing time (dynamic HTML content taking longer to process than static pages). Web page load times—and especially TTFB—have been shown to be more prominent SEO ranking factors.
How long does it take for a web page to load?
Up to 1 second: The delay is slightly perceptible. The user feels a pause. If all operations take 1 second to complete, the site may feel sluggish. Up to 10 seconds: If an operation that take 10 seconds or more to complete, you’ll lose the user’s attention. They may switch to a new tab or app or simply close your webpage.