How many times have you seen a website taking ages to load, even though you’re connected to high-speed internet?
The trouble is you don’t know what exactly the problem is behind this slowness. To fix this Google is adding a nifty tool to alert users when they’re opening a slow-loading website.
The search giant showcased a new feature, which is likely to be added in the coming months, but we’re not sure if website owners will be happy when it rolls out.
The website in the coming weeks, will show a badge, as seen below, when it takes forever to load. And if it is fast, you’ll see a green line right below the website URL.
Badging is intended to identify when sites are authored in a way that makes them slow generally, looking at historical load latencies. Further along, we may expand this to include identifying when a page is likely to be slow for a user based on their device and network conditions.Google Chrome blog post
This name and shame might not please all web developers but it’s a good way to make sure all websites load efficiently.
Thankfully, Google understands these concerns, which is why, it wants to give the so-called ‘slow’ websites a chance to optimise their loading time before these badges even show up on the front end to users.
We are being very mindful with our approach to setting the bar for what is considered a good user experience and hope to land on something that is practically achievable by all developers.Google Chrome blog post
Chrome is one of the popular web browsers used on the desktop as well as mobile, and with fluctuating network hampering data speeds, Google wants to fix things from its end, wherever it is possible.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)