Businesses running bloated websites full of slow-loading graphics and animations need to speed their sites up now – or watch their Google advertising bill rise.

Analysts at £3 million turnover Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company NetCallidus say industry gossip points to a significant change soon from the search engine.

It’s likely to change its AdWords pay per click advertising system to favour websites that load pages more quickly.

And that means advertisers with slower pages will have to spend more to maintain their advertising positions.

Mark Furber is the managing director of NetCallidus. He said: “This could be a death knell for bloated websites packed with images and animations.

“Google AdWords used to be simple – the more you paid, the higher your advert was shown, and the more traffic you got.

“But in the last few years it has tried to make its advertising more relevant to users by introducing a quality score as well. Adverts that have a better click through rate get preference and achieve a higher position for less money.”

Mark, who has been a professional search engine optimiser for eight years, added: “If industry gossip is to be believed the speed your page loads will help or hinder your quality score. We are likely to see a lot of big websites have a clean up in anticipation of this change.”

The speed a page loads is directly affected by the content on it. Large images and animations take much longer than plain text.

Google introduced the quality score to ensure that the most relevant advertisers were shown during searches.

NetCallidus is a strategic search engine marketing company, employing 26 people at Sywell Aerodrome in Northamptonshire.

Its current clients include Johnston Press, Dunelm Mill and York Fitness.

http://www.netcallidus.com