Is your site fast? Check it in 5 minutes.

“Your site is really fast,” they tell you. How would you know? There’s a way to check that is free, needs no account and takes five minutes. We use it on every site we build, starting with this one.

Open pagespeed.web.dev, paste your site’s address and press “Analyze”. In a few seconds Google gives it four scores, from 0 to 100, each in its own circle. Green, 90 and up: good. Orange: so-so. Red: there’s work to do. Look at the “Mobile” tab; it’s the hardest one to pass.

What does each circle grade? Performance: how fast it loads. Accessibility: whether anyone can use it, including people who can’t see the screen well. Best practices: whether it’s well built and secure. SEO: whether Google understands it. If you see a fifth circle, it’s new and still being tested; you can ignore it for now.

Now look at the footer of this page: it says 98 · 100 · 100 · 100. Those are the four numbers, in that order, measured on 3 October. Yes, the first one is 98, not 100; we’d rather publish it as it is than round it up. What you can do: if someone is building you a site, ask for those four numbers, measured on your real address and with a date. We hold ourselves to 95 or higher on performance.

An honest warning: the number moves a little every time you measure, and 100 doesn’t mean “perfect site”; it means it passed the basics. It’s for demanding a minimum, not for calling the job done. Your turn: paste your site’s address and check the numbers yourself.

— Paola A. González Guerrero · founder, EMPOWR STUDIO