Yep you can fake page speed test results
Have you recently been spoofed by someone selling you page optimization services and just charging your $50 getting you a 100% rating on a Google PageSpeed Insight report…
You probably purchased fake page speed optimisation services giving you a spoofed PageSpeed Insights test report.
I had a client from New Zealand hire me last week to optimize the page speed for her training course website.
She’d previously hired a guy for $50 and got what she thought were great page speed results, but for some reason the site has slowed down again.
At first she was very shocked when I told her it would take me about 5 hours work and cost her around $360.
‘Why so much?’, she asked! ‘The other guy only took one hour.’
She had been duped by a fake page optimization service giving fake PageSpeed Insights reports.
Real page speed optimization work costs real money
You will hear me repeat myself over and over – page speed is by design.
If you do not design for page speed you’ll always be chasing your tail trying to get a grade A on GTmetrix, or 100% rating on Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
If you design your website from the ground up with speed in mind – which includes using fast hosting – you can achieve less than one second page loads with WordPress sites.
And even if you use a page builder like Elementor you can still achieve sub 1 second page load speeds.
How can you spoof PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix test results?
It’s possible to fake the page speed report results created by PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix or other speed testing tools by using some smoke and mirror Javascript code.
It’s possible to spoof things by changing your page code and just delivering a single image for example to the testing tools.
This will make your page very ‘light’ seeing it has very few requests (resources) being loaded.
If there is just one small image – no css – no fonts – little or no javascript – then you will probably get a A / 100% GTmetrix speed test result, or a 100% Google PageSpeed Insights speed result.
If you think your speed report may be a fake or has been spoofed in some way look at the report details.
How can I tell how many requests are on a GTmetrix speed report
On GTmetrix speed reports it’s very easy to see on the Waterfall tab how many requests, and the type of requests being loaded on your web page.
In the page sample above you can see that 11 requests are loading with a total size of 163kb (compressed) and 500kb (uncompressed).
Page Speed Optimisation & Consultancy Service
Can GTmetrix and Google PageSpeed Insight reports change even if I have made no site changes?
Yes all page speed reports can change from report to report.
This is why you have to run multiple reports and take the average.
A word of warning though – Google PageSpeed Insights caches the speed results for a couple of minutes – or they used to – so it is best to wait for 10 minutes before retesting on PageSpeed Insights.
GTmetrix does not cache speed results so you can run reports at the same time or one after each other.
Your page speed testing reports should not change that much from report to report.
If your report results change a lot between reports it could be an indication you have a poor server and need to upgrade your server.
Run multiple page speed tests - best practice
It is best practice to run multiple page speed tests – I recommend three to five – and take the average.
The first test you run may very well be run on a ‘cold server’. This is a server that has had not recent activity.
A cunning way to spoof or fake page speed test results
And while this is not really a fake report – it is spoofing the actual page speed of your website because rarely will visitors see your website at those speeds.
Always keep your eye open for the details when it comes to page speed!
GTmetrix only shows the page test speed if it’s been set to a specific test speed. By default it tests at unthrottled connection speeds.
As you can see in the image above, I test at broadband speeds, and I usually tell my clients this. Broadband speeds are from my experience the best approximation of the speed the majority of your visitors will experience when they visit your site with a desktop connection or a good mobile 4G connection.
You will notice GTmetrix has tests for LTE mobile speeds, which approximates the Google PageSpeed Insights mobile speeds.
Finally so you do not get spoofed or fooled with page speed test results watch out for this ...
The last thing to keep your eye on with GTmetrix is the speed test location.
You have no control over test speed or test location with Google PageSpeed Insights testing reports.
GTmetrix by default tests from Vancouver, Canada. If your server is in Asia this will give you a lopsided speed report.
So look carefully at any page speed reports given to you and check the details so you are not conned with fake page speed test results.
Free speed assessment ...
if you want me to eyeball your site and give you a couple of free speed tips, fill out your details below.
