Pagespeed Insights Checker
Enter a URL
About Pagespeed Insights Checker
Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is Google's own free tool for measuring how a webpage performs for real users. Unlike a generic speed test, PSI gives you four separate scores — Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO — each out of 100, tested separately for both mobile and desktop. It combines two data sources: Lighthouse lab data (a controlled test simulating a mid-range Android device on a throttled mobile connection) and real-world field data from the Chrome User Experience Report, showing how actual Chrome users have experienced your page over the past 28 days. The PageSpeed Insights Checker runs this analysis for any URL and returns your four scores along with the underlying Core Web Vitals — giving you the complete picture of how Google sees your page's performance.
What the Tool Returns
Enter any URL and the tool runs Google's PSI analysis and returns the four category scores for both mobile and desktop, plus Core Web Vitals field data from real Chrome users. Here is a sample result.
The four score circles are from Lighthouse lab data. The Core Web Vitals below them are from real Chrome users — this field data is what affects Google rankings, not the 0-100 scores.
Understanding the 0–100 Score Scale
All four PSI categories use the same colour-coded threshold system. The thresholds apply equally to Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO.
No significant issues detected by Lighthouse. The target for all four categories.
Issues detected — addressable but not critical. Common range for most real-world sites.
Significant problems present. This range actively affects user experience and SEO.
A score of 100 means no automated Lighthouse issues were detected — not that the page is perfect in every possible way. Some accessibility issues require human review and won't appear in automated testing. A score of 90+ is the practical target for most sites.
The Four PSI Categories — What Each Score Actually Measures
Most people focus only on the Performance score and ignore the other three. All four categories matter — for rankings, for users, and for your site's overall health.
Performance
A weighted composite score based on five Lighthouse metrics that each measure a different aspect of loading speed and responsiveness. This is the score most people chase — but it is a lab score, not the field data Google uses for rankings.
The five metrics and their approximate weighting:
Accessibility
Measures how accessible your page is to users with disabilities — including screen reader users, keyboard-only users, and those with visual impairments. Lighthouse checks for ARIA attributes, colour contrast ratios, image alt text, form labels, and heading structure.
An Accessibility score below 90 means real users with disabilities are having difficulty using your page — and it signals content structure issues that also affect crawlers. Alt text, heading hierarchy, and descriptive link text all double as SEO signals.
Best Practices
Checks whether the page follows current web development and security standards. A low Best Practices score is often a sign of an unmaintained site — outdated dependencies, browser console errors, deprecated APIs, or missing HTTPS.
Key checks: HTTPS (still serving HTTP pages causes a "Not Secure" browser warning), browser console errors, deprecated JavaScript APIs, image aspect ratios, and whether the page uses modern browser security features. Console errors alone can drop this score significantly.
SEO
Checks crawlability and on-page SEO fundamentals — not keyword rankings or backlinks. Lighthouse audits for a valid title tag, meta description, robots meta tag, viewport meta tag (for mobile), legible font sizes, and descriptive link text.
An SEO score below 90 usually means a missing or duplicate meta description, a noindex directive on a page that should be indexed, or font sizes too small for mobile. These are basic structural issues, not content quality issues — and they are the fastest category to fix to 100.
The PSI Score and Rankings — What Actually Matters
Your PSI 0–100 score does not directly affect Google rankings
Google has confirmed this explicitly. The 0–100 Performance score is a Lighthouse lab score — a simulation run in controlled conditions. It is not what Google's ranking algorithm reads. What does affect rankings is the Core Web Vitals field data shown below the score circles — the LCP, INP, and CLS values measured from real Chrome users visiting your page, at the 75th percentile, over the past 28 days. This data comes from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
The practical relationship: a high PSI Performance score means your page likely has good Core Web Vitals in the real world too — fixing the issues Lighthouse identifies tends to improve field data over time. But a page with a 67 Performance score and Good field data CWV scores is in a stronger ranking position than a page with a 95 Performance score and Poor field data — because Google ranks from field data, not lab scores. Use the PSI score to find what to fix. Check the field data below it to know your actual ranking signal.
When to Use This Tool
Baseline check before SEO work
Before investing in content or link building, run PSI to confirm your site's technical foundation is solid. All four categories at 90+ means no technical barriers holding back your organic growth.
After a site update or redesign
New themes, plugins, or code changes can silently drop your PSI scores. Running PSI after each significant change catches regressions before they accumulate into ranking drops.
Comparing mobile vs desktop performance
PSI tests both separately. Mobile scores are consistently lower than desktop for most sites — and mobile is what Google's mobile-first indexing uses. Always check mobile first.
Diagnosing a sudden ranking drop
If organic traffic drops without obvious content or link causes, a PSI audit reveals whether a technical regression — dropped Performance score, new Best Practices errors, or changed SEO score — could be responsible.
Checking competitor technical health
PSI works on any public URL. Running a top competitor's key pages gives you a clear view of their technical quality — identifying whether they have technical weaknesses you can outperform.
Verifying accessibility compliance
A 100 Accessibility score is not full WCAG compliance — but it eliminates the automated failures most commonly cited in accessibility audits. For businesses with legal accessibility obligations, the PSI Accessibility score is a fast first-pass check.
How to Use the PageSpeed Insights Checker
Enter the URL
Paste any publicly accessible page URL — your homepage, a key landing page, or a top blog post. Test your most important pages first — highest traffic, most links.
View the Four Scores
The tool returns scores for Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO — for both mobile and desktop. Check mobile scores first — that's what Google's mobile-first index uses.
Read the Field Data
Below the four scores, check the Core Web Vitals field data — LCP, INP, CLS. These are the real-user values that feed Google's ranking signal. Aim for all three in the Good range.
Score variance note: PSI lab scores can vary by 5–10 points between runs due to network conditions and server response variability at the time of testing. If your score changes slightly between runs, that is normal. Significant changes (10+ points) indicate a real change in performance. The field data CWV values are more stable — they average 28 days of real-user experience and change slowly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between this tool and the Page Speed Checker?
They measure performance from different angles:
- The Page Speed Checker returns raw performance metrics directly — LCP, INP, CLS, TTFB, FCP, and total load time — giving you the underlying numbers without aggregation into a composite score
- This PageSpeed Insights Checker runs Google's PSI API and returns the four scored categories (Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO) plus the CrUX field data for Core Web Vitals — the same data Google's own PageSpeed Insights tool produces
For diagnosing which specific metric is causing a problem, the Page Speed Checker is more direct. For a complete audit across all four quality categories and a quick overview of your Core Web Vitals field data, PageSpeed Insights is the right starting point.
My mobile score is much lower than desktop — is that normal?
Yes — this is very common and expected. PSI simulates mobile on a mid-range Android device with throttled mobile data, which is significantly slower than a desktop on a cable or Wi-Fi connection. Most sites score 15–30 points lower on mobile than desktop. The mobile score is the more important one because Google uses mobile-first indexing — the mobile version of your page is what determines your rankings, not the desktop version. Focus your optimisation efforts on improving the mobile score, not just the desktop score.
Why does my PSI score change between runs?
PSI lab scores (the 0–100 Performance score) are sensitive to external conditions at the time of testing — server response time, network conditions, and whether the page was cached. Variance of 5–10 points between runs is normal and does not indicate a real change in performance. To get a meaningful read on your Performance score, run PSI 3–5 times and take the average rather than relying on a single test. The Core Web Vitals field data below the score circles is more reliable — it aggregates 28 days of real user data and changes slowly and steadily, not run-to-run.
Should I target a perfect score of 100?
For Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO: yes — 100 on these three is practical and worth targeting. The issues these categories flag are usually concrete and fixable: a missing meta description, console errors from an outdated plugin, an image without alt text. Fixing them has real benefits beyond the score.
For Performance: a 90+ is the meaningful target — chasing 100 can lead to over-optimisation trade-offs (removing functionality that affects usability, eliminating analytics scripts that provide business value). Google considers 90+ as passing. Focus on what is causing the Performance score to be below 90 rather than on the difference between 92 and 100.
Is this tool completely free?
Yes — completely free, no account, no sign-up, no limits. This applies to all 48+ tools on digitalsub.pro.