Google’s Button is Slow…And so is Facebook’s.
Jun ‘11 2
There, I said it!
Yes Google, who built speed into its core values, has an entire website dedicated to making the web faster, developed PageSpeed, invents protocols named “SPDY”, and makes bad ass videos showing how quickly their browser loads web pages from the local disk, has their own take on the Like Button.
And it’s slow. Not only is it slow, it is slower than Facebook’s Like Button, which I didn’t think was possible.
Check out the painful WebPageTest results here:
- Google +1: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110603_09_R97J/
- Facebook Like: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110603_MC_R97K/
Let’s assume it’s the first time we get to experience the joy of these buttons (clear cache):
| Google +1 | Facebook Like | |
|---|---|---|
| Load Time | 2.2 sec. | 1.8 sec. |
| Bytes | 66 KB | 92 KB |
| Requests | 8 | 9 |
2 seconds to render a button? A button. Really.
It’s okay, +1 will soon be everywhere, so they are sure to be cached super-well? No. Repeat view (cached) results:
| Google +1 | Facebook Like | |
|---|---|---|
| Load Time | 1.8 sec. | 0.8 sec. |
| Bytes | 25 KB | 4 KB |
| Requests | 4 | 1 |
The worst part is that this button will almost certainly impact SEO ranking in Google, making it essential for most websites. And speed is also a ranking factor. I’m confused.
Facebook’s Like button is also required for maximizing traffic. Let’s see what they both look like — together:
Our bare minimum hope for first impression load time is 2.5 seconds. According to Google, entire pages should load this fast!
Google, Facebook: I don’t think you need me to make recommendations on how to fix it. I know you can do it – please make it a priority.
Please also provide an asynchronous JS snippet as a recommended option in your instructions like you did with Google Analytics.
You hurt me today Google, and you’re hurting the web. I thought you and me were like THIS:
