On Google’s Official Webmaster Central Blog it was confirmed that Google now factors a site’s load-speed when assessing its search ranking.

Many blog commenters & readers have expressed concerns and doubts over the reason for Google’s new signal in search ranking. Take into account, that slow page loading speeds is attributed to Google’s own Analytics script or  AdSense code.

Are these doubts about major ranking damage warranted on the average website?

It has been known in webmaster circles for a few months that Google was going to factor this into their page ranking factors. However, when comparing the ranking of a slow versus fast loading web site, there has been no negative differences in search engine rankings.

Whenever Google does something new, there is an initial concern from the webmaster community.
It is possible to believe that this is a win-win situation for both Google and the user experience, the ultimate agenda here could be to improve the indexing capabilities of the search engine servers, thereby returning more relevant and up-to-date results for searchers.

Matt Cutts said: “People shouldn’t stress out too much about Site-Speed, and the reason is that we’re always going to care first and foremost about quality. How good is a page for users? Don’t think it’s going to be the largest of the two-hundred factors.“