How reliable is Google PageSpeed test?

[Torsten Därr]

Hi, I've tested quite a large number of URL's of different sites using the PageSpeed tool and the only URL's that returned a green result were google.com and bing.com 

All the other URL's had horrible results but I tested some of them on a 3G and even 2G connection and they loaded within a few seconds. So, it seems to me that the PageSpeed tool is not very reliable or am I missing something? Many thanks, Torsten

[Rick Steinwand]

You don't have to believe in PSI.

Do you think if you made your scripts, pages and images as physically small as possible (without losing quality) and enabled compression (so less network needed to download), that it would be good?

In other words, do you think if you used best practices for your website, that maybe it would be faster?

Thomson Reuters website: horrible code, nothing validates, PSI gives it a bad score, BUT they throw a LOT of bandwidth at it so speed isn't too bad. What's your take on that? Are they getting their money's worth?

How does your car run when it hasn't had a tuneup in 10 years? Get my point?

[Rick Steinwand]

You'd be stupid to not at least do the simple stuff (the low hanging fruit).

[Torsten Därr]

I'm not talking about what I do. I'm talking about how reliable and useful Google's Pagespeed tool is. 

[Rick Steinwand]

To be honest, I like other tools that give more detail better. I think PSI is too "dumbed" down.

My favorite tool is https://gtmetrix.com/

But these are good too.

https://www.webpagetest.org/

https://tools.pingdom.com

One I have things the way I like them, I recheck with PSI.

They all show the same thing, but GTmetrix is better a describing the exact problem, like "your image needs to be resized from xx to xx". Plus you have the option of monitoring a handful of files on your site with a weekly report.

[Torsten Därr]

I ran gtmetrix.com through PSI and it says 'needs work' ;-) Very funny. 

[Rick Steinwand]

You're lucky it didn't blow up.