Google loves faster loading pages! How does your site measure up?

• Is there any intrinsic organic SEO value to having faster-loading pages in Google? Does a faster-loading site receive a boost in the SERPs over a site that times outs or loads the full page substantially slower?

Answer: Yes, there is now concrete evidence directly from Google that site speed is now a factor they use to rank sites algorithmically. Although site speed as a ranking factor for determining quality page scores for Adwords advertisers has been live since March 2008, it wasn't until more recently that Google publicly stated the same is now true for its organic search results.

Specifically, in an April 2010 Google Webmaster blog post, Google Engineers Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal stated that site speed is a signal that Google has been using for awhile to determine relevancy of a page.

More recently, as a result of the Panda update from Google, there has been a greater emphasis on how site speed CAN and DOES influence bounce rate (which can cause a site to drop like a rock in Google).

In fact, Brett Tabke, founder of the well-known WebmasterWorld forum, coined a phrase last April called the Panda Metric in this thread (subscription required) ...