A few weeks ago, Google formally announced, that as of July 2018, pagespeed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches – they’re calling it the ‘Speed Update’. This is especially important, as Google’s mobile first index has started rolling out across some websites.

The open-source content management system (CMS), WordPress, is the largest CMS out there – definitely one of the most user-friendly platforms. It’s estimated that a third of all web content is published through WordPress.

WordPress has struggled throughout the years with code bloat, security and performance challenges. Despite significant improvements in its core code over the last few years, WordPress pages still lag behind non-WordPress pages on most page speed performance indicators.

Google’s mission is “to contribute to the prevalence of a healthy, flourishing, and vibrant web”, which includes serving users fast loading webpages.

Because of this, it makes sense for Google to partner up with WordPress to try and remove any obstacles keeping it from accomplishing its mission – and that’s exactly what they’ve done!

Alberto Medina, Developer Advocate in the Content Ecosystems Team at Google, said in his personal blog:

‘Our WordPress vision covers a lot of exciting work across the full breadth of the WordPress ecosystem: collaborating on WP core, developing themes, plugins, and WP-tailored tools and infrastructure, and engaging with the broader WordPress community of publishers.’

Why should you care?

If you have a WordPress website and always had pagespeed challenges, you now have peace of mind that Google is working with WordPress minimise those challenges.

If you have a non-WordPress website and care about appearing in Google’s organic search results (and who wouldn’t?), this may be another compelling reason why WordPress may be right for you.

Tags: CMS, content management system, google, Pagespeed, User Experience, Wordpress