Google announced a couple of weeks ago a new PageSpeed Insights upgrade and that upgrade is now rolling out to everyone. Addy Osmani from Google said this upgrade makes the tool “more intuitive” when measuring performance and improves using real-world and lab data.
PageSpeed Insights tool. The PageSpeed Insights tool analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster. Google upgraded the tool in 2018 to use real world field data from Chrome browsers.
New location. Google moved the tool to https://pagespeed.web.dev/ – previously it was located at https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
What is new. Google said the user interface is more intuitive “by clearly differentiating between data derived from a synthetic environment and data collected from users in the field.” Google now has set up devoted sections for lab data versus field data in the tool. Labels for “Field Data” and “Lab data” have been replaced with text that indicates what the data means and how it can help. Google also moved the field data section to the top.
Google also has Core Web Vitals assessment result, which earlier appeared as a single word “passed” or “failed” in Field Data. This helps it stand out as a separate subsection with a distinct icon.
Google changed the navigation menu at the top and included links for mobile and desktop centrally on the report page. The links are now more and “distinctly indicate the platform for which the data is being shown,” the company said.
Here is a before and after screenshot:
PageSpeed Insight’s Origin Summary was moved to appear on the clock of a checkbox. Google said moved this report section to a new tab. The Origin Summary provides the aggregated CrUX score for all pages from the origin.
The PageSpeed Insights report now includes a new information section at the bottom of each field and lab card sharing the following details about the sampled data:
- Data collection period
- Visit durations
- Devices
- Network connections
- Sample size
- Chrome versions
There is a new “Expand view” feature that adds a drill-down function to the field data section and allows you to view granular details for the Core Web Vitals metrics.
The page image screenshot was removed and now the image and thumbnails of the page displaying the loading sequence will both be available in the lab data section.
Google also changes some of its measurements for the different metrics.
Why we care. If you are obsessed with speed or want to make your Page Experience scores and Core Web Vital scores the highest possible, you can use PageSpeed Insights to work on that. Review the changes Google made the tool to see what more you can get out of this tool that you did not have beforehand.
