Beginning in April 2008, you'll be able to see a grade for your landing page's load time in your AdWords account. 'Load time' refers to the amount of time it takes for a user to view your landing page after clicking your ad.
Several weeks after your load time grade becomes visible, it will begin to impact your landing page quality and, therefore, your Quality Score. We recommend working to improve your load time during this interim if it's received a low score.
I. Why is load time a factor?
Users value ads that bring them to the information they want as efficiently as possible. A high-quality landing page should have a fast load time as well as feature unique, relevant content. Fast load times benefit advertisers as well, since users are less likely to abandon a site that loads quickly.
II. How is my load time graded?
Each of your keywords will receive a load time grade based on the average load time of the landing pages in the ad group and of any landing pages in the rest of the account with the same domain. If multiple ad groups have landing pages with the same domain, therefore, the keywords in all these ad groups will have identical load time grades.
Two things to note:
- When determining load time grade, the AdWords system follows destination URLs at both the ad and keyword level and evaluates the final landing page.
- If your ad group contains landing pages with different domains, the keywords' load time grades will be based on the domain with the slowest load time. All the keywords in an ad group will always have the same load time grade.
We evaluate your load time relative to the average in your server's geographic region. If your website is hosted on a server in India, for example, your landing page load time will be compared to the average load time in that region of India. This is true even if your website is intended for an audience in the United States.
Learn more about how load time is graded.
III. How can I see if my load time is good or not?
You can see a keyword's load time grade in the Keyword Analysis field:
- If your keyword is graded 'This page loads slowly,' your landing page quality and Quality Score will be negatively affected.
- If your keyword is graded 'No problems found,' your landing page quality and Quality Score will not be affected. The one exception is if your keyword is graded 'No problems found' and marked 'Load time is faster than the average in your server's geographic region.' In this case, your landing page quality and Quality Score may be positively affected.
IV. How can I improve my load time?
The AdWords system re-evaluates landing pages on a regular basis. If you make significant improvements to your landing page's load time, you should see improved Quality Scores. Note that your Quality Score may update incrementally over a number of weeks after you improve your load time.
To improve your load time:
- Use fewer and faster redirects.
- Don't use interstitial pages.
- Compress the size of your page.
- Contact your webmaster or web hosting provider to discuss other possibilities.
Learn more about improving load time.
See a list of frequently asked questions about landing page load time.
