How to optimize the PageSpeed Insights score

PageSpeed Insights (“PSI”, Lighthouse) score is the simplest way to measure a site’s performance. However, it’s also very imprecise and doesn’t affect SEO. This means you shouldn’t invest too much effort into it.

Maybe don’t – because it doesn’t matter

Let's take a look why you shouldn't put too much time into optimizing the PSI/Lighthouse score.

PageSpeed Insights scores don’t affect SEO

PageSpeed Insights scores don’t affect your search ranking (source, source) — it is the Core Web Vitals that do (Google). The difference between the two is that PageSpeed Insights runs a test on a fake and slow Android phone, whereas Core Web Vitals collect data from your real visitors (more about this).

As a result, often, your PageSpeed Insights score won’t be green even when the Core Web Vitals are all green. You can ignore PageSpeed Insights when that happens.

The best place to see your Core Web Vitals is the Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console/core-web-vitals.

PageSpeed Insights recommendations aren’t accurate

PageSpeed Insights recommendations are notoriously imprecise. They can give you a starting point to optimize – but we’ve also seen multiple cases where implementing them improved neither the real-world performance, nor the PageSpeed Insights’ own score. Here’s an example.

If you do, avoid common pitfalls

  1. Run several tests

The PageSpeed Insights score varies between runs, sometimes up to 15 points. To get a more realistic value, run the test at least three times and pick the median or average.

(You’ll need to wait a few minutes after running every test, as PageSpeed Insights shows the same result if you re-run the test immediately. Or, to avoid waiting, append ? and a new random number to the end of the URL on every test, like my-site.com/my-page/?1234.)

  1. Follow performance best practices

We recommend taking a look at our collection of best practices for images, fonts, and more. Our guide is tailored to Framer sites and might me more worth spending time on to improve the performance of your website. Please always make sure your site is optimized and does not have any warnings when publishing — this ensures the best performance for your users and SEO.