Speed Test Tool

WordPress.com’s Speed Test Tool is integrated into all Business and Commerce plans and is available as a free, public tool at wordpress.com/speed-test. 

With the Speed Test Tool, you can quickly identify areas impacting your site’s Core Web Vitals (CWV), like load times, interactivity, and visual stability. It provides actionable insights and recommendations, making it easier to optimize your site’s performance and deliver a smoother, faster user experience.

By focusing on CWV improvements, you’re not only optimizing for search engine algorithms; you’re enhancing user satisfaction. Better CWV leads to faster load times, reduced layout shifts, and more responsive interactions—all of which contribute to a smoother browsing experience and, ultimately, a more successful site.

If you’re using the free version of the tool, you can sign up for these reports to be emailed to you every week. These reports highlight trends and any new performance issues, so you’re always on top of your website performance. 

Access the Speed Test Tool 

The free version of the Speed Test Tool lets you test the performance of any WordPress URL, while the Speed Test Tool integrated within your WordPress.com account gives you historical performance data of your existing WordPress.com websites. 

Accessing the tool from within your WordPress.com account allows you to easily monitor site performance, all within your site’s Hosting Overview dashboard:

1. Log into your WordPress.com account.
2. Visit your Sites list in the dashboard by visiting wordpress.com/sites or by clicking the W in the top-right corner.
3. Click on your website name.
4. Click on the Performance tab to run the tests. The tool will run a series of tests, including Lighthouse and CrUX data analysis, which may take up to 30 seconds to complete.

If hosting access is not yet activated, you will see the “Hosting Features” tab instead. Click on the “Hosting Features” tab to see a notice that says, “Activate all hosting features.” Click on the Activate now button to unlock your server settings. This is a one-time action you will never need to do again for your site. You will then see the Performance tab.

Once the analysis is complete, the performance report will be ready, which provides insights and tailored recommendations to improve your site’s Core Web Vitals. 

The report generates separate performance scores for mobile and desktop––click the Mobile and Desktop toggles to view the site’s performance scores and personalised recommendations on each device. 

By default, your site’s homepage will be tested. To test other pages, click on the Page option to select from other public pages on your site.

Performance Report

The report provides a holistic view of your site’s health by running various tests, including a detailed Google Lighthouse audit and recommendations. The testing goes beyond one-time checks by collecting Chrome UX Report (CrUX) data, enabling you to view historical performance trends, and by offering AI-enhanced recommendations for optimizing your scores. 

Performance Score

The tool will generate a report made up of a performance score using Lighthouse, an automated tool from Google for assessing web page quality.

The performance score is a combined representation of your site‘s individual speed metrics, which include the following:

• First Contentful Paint (FCP): The time it takes for the first bit of content (like text or images) to show up on the screen after someone visits your website. The best sites have an FCP of under 1.8 seconds.
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): How long it takes for the biggest piece of visible content, like a large image or heading, to fully appear on the screen. The best sites have an LCP of under 2.5 seconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): How much your website’s layout moves around while it’s loading, which can cause things like buttons or text to shift unexpectedly. The best sites have a CLS score of 0.1 or lower.
• Time to First Byte (TTFB): How quickly your website responds after someone clicks on it, showing the first sign that it’s loading. The best sites have a TTFB of around 800 milliseconds or less.
• Total Blocking Time (TBT): How long your website is unresponsive while loading, meaning people can’t interact with it during this time. The best sites have a TBT of under 200 milliseconds.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): The responsiveness of your site by assessing how quickly it responds to user interactions, such as clicks or taps. INP captures the delay before the screen updates after an interaction, reflecting how responsive your site feels. The best sites aim for an INP of under 200 milliseconds for a seamless user experience.

If no historical data is available, the tool simply omits the historical graph, providing a clean, relevant view of your current performance.

Recommendations

Each audit generates AI-enhanced recommendations tailored to the specific setup of your WordPress site. Our AI considers factors like installed plugins, results from the Lighthouse audit, hosting setup, and CDN configuration to generate tailored recommendations.

These recommendations offer detailed, actionable steps, guiding you on what to improve for optimal CWV results. By resolving these issues, you’ll likely see a direct boost in your performance score.To find your recommendations, view your report and scroll to the Personalized Recommendations section or click the View # Recommendations button. Use the drop-down menu in the right corner to select specific metric recommendations.