Loading time: an important optimization for AI Bots
Description
Loading speed measures the time it takes for a web page to fully display in the browser.
It's been a direct ranking factor for Google since 2010, and even more critical since the introduction of Core Web Vitals in 2021.
A fast page improves the user experience, reduces the bounce rate, and also makes it easier for crawlers to discover.
Why is this important for ai search?
AI bots have timeouts and resource limitations that make speed critical for content accessibility.
A slow page may be abandoned by training or inference crawlers, depriving the content of inclusion in datasets.
Furthermore, LLMs often prioritize quickly accessible sources when generating real-time responses, favoring performance-optimized sites.
Technical details
- Page load time
- Total page weight
- Number of HTTP requests
- Use of lazy-loading
- Script minification and asynchronization
1. Page load time
The loading speed of a web page is a crucial factor for user experience and indexing by search engines, including those based on generative AI. Fast loading improves ranking and the ability of bots to efficiently crawl your content.
- Goal: The page should load in less than 2.5 seconds. This threshold is generally considered a best practice for maintaining user engagement and promoting good crawling by robots.
- Resource Identification: Identify the resources that are loaded, including JavaScript (JS) files, images, and CSS style sheets. A detailed analysis of these elements is essential for optimizing the rendering process.
2. Total Page Weight
The total weight of a web page has a direct impact on its loading time. A lighter page loads faster, which is beneficial for both users and crawlers.
- Recommendation: The total page size should ideally be less than 2 MB. This includes all resources (HTML, CSS, JS, images, fonts, etc.).
- Image optimization: Compress images without any perceptible loss of quality and use modern formats like WebP. Adapt image sizes to their actual display.
- File minification: Reduce the size of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files by removing unnecessary characters (spaces, comments, etc.).
3. HTTP Requests
Each resource loaded on a web page requires an HTTP request. A high number of requests can significantly slow down loading time.
- Recommendation: The number of HTTP requests should be reasonable, ideally less than 100. Reducing this number helps reduce latency and speed up page rendering.
- File Bundling: Combine CSS and JavaScript files when possible to reduce the number of requests.
- CSS Sprites: Use CSS sprites to group multiple small images into one, reducing requests for icons and graphic elements.
4. Using Lazy Loading
Lazy loading allows you to defer the loading of non-critical resources (such as images or videos) until they are needed, i.e., when they enter the user's viewport.
- Implementation: Apply lazy loading to images and other resources that are not immediately visible on the screen. This improves the initial page load time.
- Loading="lazy" attribute: Use the loading="lazy" attribute on the <img> and <iframe> tags to enable native browser lazy loading.
5. Minification and Async/Deferring Scripts
Optimizing JavaScript scripts is essential to improve page load speed and initial rendering.
- Minification: Ensure all JavaScript scripts are minified. This reduces their size and download time.
- Asynchronous/Deferred: Load scripts asynchronously (async) or deferred (defer) whenever possible. This allows the browser to continue parsing the HTML and rendering the page without being blocked by script downloading and execution.
- async: The script is downloaded in parallel with the HTML parsing and executed as soon as it is available, without blocking rendering.
- defer: The script is downloaded in parallel with the HTML parsing and executed after the HTML has been fully parsed, just before the DOMContentLoaded event.
Resources & useful links
Be the answer in AI search!
Boostez votre visibilité dans les résultats de recherche IA
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Mistal, Claude...
