preface
In the first part of this article, we provide a comprehensive description of Google SEO tools(lighthouse SEO tools). Here are some basic definitions, and how Lighthouse will work interpretation lighthouse results. Lighthouse code is available on the public Google Chrome GitHub repo. so every programmer can use it directly but google make it tune for his aims.
in early 2018, Google released an SEO tool called Lighthouse that offers insight on how to improve the quality of your pages. The Google Lighthouse audit is an open-source automated tool that checks a page’s performance, accessibility, and more.
There are a few ways web developers can implement these audits and even more ways that this new Google tool is changing the game of SEO.in this paper we want to introduce some details of interpretation lighthouse results. Remember that interpretation lighthouse results is one of the most important factors in improving the quality of your site. Keep in mind Lighthouse and interpretation lighthouse results are one of the most important factors that will improve the quality of your site.
Lighthouse Architecture
in part 1 of this article, we talk about the definition , how to use Lighthouse and why it’s useful so we are not going to go into a huge amount of detail about how the tool works but the Lighthouse team have created a very nice diagram highlighting how the Lighthouse tool works when running on GitHub.
What metrics are tested by Google Lighthouse and interpretation lighthouse results?
There are more than 75 metrics it tests and gives you overall scoring. Some of the following popular ones you might be interested in as a site owner, SEO analyst, webmasters.
Performance
time to interactive, latency, speed index, resources optimization, TTFB, asset delivery, scripts execution time, DOM size, etc.
You already know that the speed with which a web page loads is of extreme importance for users. As the time it takes for your web page to load increases, so does the likelihood that your visitor will abandon their search. Your Lighthouse performance report helps with this.
The Lighthouse(lighthouse SEO tools) audit provides site performance reports under several categories including metrics, opportunities, and diagnostics. Metrics covers three main points of the loading process, showing you which page features are slowing things down.
Next, you’ll be presented with suggested opportunities for speeding up the application. These suggestions include a link and image compression, as well as optimizing other resources. And finally, the performance component of the Google Lighthouse audit also offers diagnostic information.
The diagnostics of a page include reducing the length of chains required for page loading and deferring the downloading of unnecessary resources.
The Performance report is one of the most useful parts of the Lighthouse tool (in my opinion). It provides a breakdown of the key milestones of how quickly a page loads (First meaningful paint, First Interactive and Consistently Interactive).
Next, the report provides the Perceptual Speed Index and the Estimated Input Latency. These metrics are useful for benchmarking a mobile website’s pages against, using these metrics to improve their performance.
Finally, a really important aspect of the tool is highlighting the issues which are causing a low-Performance score.
The actions are prioritized by the impact they have on the web performance (site speed) of a page, which is useful when communicating to web development teams which recommendations will have the greatest impact.
If you run the tool and you are in the red, then I highly recommend doing something about it!
SEO
Mobile friendly, meta, crawling, canonical, structure, etc.
Ironically, this is probably the worst of the audits in the Lighthouse tool. Just running through the list of opportunities and recommendations from the report, it all seems very basic. Also, the tool checks the quality of the meta tags. Just because a webpage has a meta tag doesn’t mean that it follows SEO best practice.
There are better SEO tools out there which check for meta tag issues on the mobile version of a website ( for e.g., Sitebulb, Screaming Frog Web Crawler, etc.) We also need to remember that this is only the first release of the SEO audit in the tool, and it’s exciting to see that developers are adding in SEO audits for a tool that checks the quality of a webpage or app. It’ll be interesting to see what they add next.
Best Practices
Image optimization, JS libraries, browser error logging, accessible over HTTPS, known JS vulnerabilities, etc
We already know that Google has a lot of rules. This element ensures that web developers are following the rules and implementing best practices when it comes to web design. This feature also helps users avoid performance pitfalls and modernize the pages.
Although many will simply use the Lighthouse tool for the Performance and SEO audits, I highly recommend running the Best Practice audit as well. It can provide recommendations that can improve both your performance and user experience for mobile websites.
Just to highlight some examples of recommendations which we found useful:
- Uses HTTP/2 for its own resources: highlights if all internal resources are using the HTTP/2 protocol. Using HTTP/2 on your website can significantly improve your site speed.
- Uses Passive Event Listeners to Improve Scrolling Performance: a great issue to highlight on mobile which improves how quickly users scroll through your website.
- Displays images with correct aspect ratio: highlights which images can be resized to help improve the site speed of a mobile page.
- Avoid front-end JavaScript libraries with known security vulnerabilities: highlights if your website is using JavaScript which has known security vulnerabilities. If this is exploited it could cause you to be hacked and potentially removed from search results if Google picks it up.
Accessibility
Page elements, language, ARIA attributes, etc.
This feature of the Google Lighthouse audit examines the behaviors of nontraditional users. Accessibility is geared toward visitors who suffer some sort of disability or impairment. This portion of the audit tool analyzes the screen reader and other assistive technologies on the page.
A lot of technical SEOs and website owners will ignore or miss this audit but there are a number of useful recommendations that the tool can provide which can help improve the overall user experience — especially for those who require assistant technology, such as screen readers.
A number of examples which I have found useful:
- Color Contrast Is Satisfactory: recommendation highlights that certain text is not legible
- Page Specifies Valid Language: highlights if the HTML Lang attribute is being used
- Image elements have [alt] attributes: highlights images which don’t have ALT tags (also required for SEO image optimization)
Many webmasters struggle with highlighting and addressing accessibility problems, and we think the fact that the Lighthouse tool provides these recommendations is a great way for people to improve their mobile websites for those who rely on accessibility technology.
PWA (Progressive Web Application)
redirect HTTP to HTTPS, response code ok, fast loading on 3G, splash screen, viewport, etc.
Progressive web applications (PWA) are rated based on three key factors – speed, reliability, and engagement. The Lighthouse audit helps developers take a PWA from baseline to exceptional by providing a checklist of features.
Users will see a list of tests that the PWA has failed and ways to fix these issues. Next, you’ll see which portions of the test your PWA passed. Manual checks are also run but do not affect your overall score.
It is a fantastic tool and you can use it in multiple ways.
How to use the lighthouse as a developer(interpretation lighthouse results)
You can run Lighthouse(lighthouse SEO tools) in Chrome DevTools from the command line or as a node module. You give an audit URL to Lighthouse, which performs a series of audits on the page, and then generates a report on the state of the page. From there, use the failing audits as indicators to improve the page. Each audit has a reference document explaining the importance of the audit, as well as the solutions.
If you are a developer, you can use it with Node.js to run a test programmatically. There are already a few tools in the market powered by Lighthouse who offer continuous site performance monitoring.
The report details how visitors interact with these different elements of the page and what issues need fixing.
Anyone Can Use and Understand It
Analytics software can prove confusing for even the most knowledgeable performance experts. If you can’t understand the report, you can’t make the necessary changes. This is extremely frustrating for site designers, especially if they know their site needs improvement but they can’t figure how why or how to achieve it. The Google Lighthouse audit takes the guesswork out of issues with page performance and offers a clear solution.
Not Just for Developers
Improving page performance goes hand-in-hand with improving the visitor experience. When web developers learn what areas of their page need work, they can make the necessary changes and inadvertently, improve the browser experience.
It’s an Upgrade
Although the Google Lighthouse (lighthouse SEO tools) audit feature is new, the Audit’s panel has actually been around for some time. This was before version 60 of Chrome was introduced. It’s important to note that these audit reports are only done using the Chrome browser.
The former audit panel has been updated with the Lighthouse tool(lighthouse SEO tools), creating a completely different user experience. In the past, users had the option of using the Lighthouse tool in the older version of Chrome, but now, it’s conveniently located directly in the browser. Essentially, the Audit’s panel is powered by Lighthouse.
Using Lighthouse(lighthouse SEO tools) Through Chrome for support on interpretation lighthouse results
Chrome Extension
It is easy to perform an SEO audit through lighthouse extension:
- Firstly install the extension in the Google Chrome store.
- Click the lighthouse icon in the extension bar
- Select from the options list and select what you want to do, for instance, an audit, SEO & Best Practices then click OK.
- Then click Generate Report
One the new tool completes the audit, a new tab will appear and your report can be seen.
Chrome Canary
If you want to audit through Chrome Canary then the steps are as follows:
- Go to Chrome developer tools.
- The go-to Audit.
- Click to Perform Audit.
- Then tick the SEO checkbox for the audit and run it.
As you can see above, you have an option to choose what you want to test. This is great as you can focus on your goal and get the audit results faster.
Another option for using the Google Lighthouse audit tool is to install and run the Node command-line tool. After installing the Node tool, you’ll need to download Google Chrome from your desktop. Next, install the long-term support version of Node. The last step is to install the Lighthouse tool.
The – g flag will install it as a global module. To run an audit, use “lighthouse <url>”. To view your audit options, use “lighthouse — help”. You also have the option to run the Node module programmatically.
Conclusion of interpretation lighthouse results
Google Lighthouse(lighthouse SEO tools) looks for promising tools to perform a continuity test to improve site performance and usability. If you are using WordPress and looking to make your site loads faster then check out our site.
According to the new lighthouse tool any person looking to audit a site needs to bear in mind certain elements featuring:
- Avoid plugins
- Adjusting font sizes to screen size.
- Using the HTML <title> element.
- Using the HTML <meta name=”description” content=”x”tag.
- Adding a viewport meta tag to optimize your pages for mobiles.
- The status code.
- Using descriptive anchor texts for internal linking.
- Making certain pages are not blocked from indexation with the meta name=”robots” content=”noindex” tag.
A big difference between the updated tool and the previous one is that it is easy to overlook the fact that a page is blocked from indexation in a search engine.
Lighthouse is not a revolutionary tool, it does, however, bring attention to some of the old Google Guidelines that many people may have forgotten about. If you own a small/medium-sized website the lighthouse tool will probably be a really good tool, even if you are familiar with Google’s Guidelines it is always useful to have a reminder.
The new Google lighthouse tool has a basic list of checks which can be used for SEO purposes. It is already familiar with many other SEO tools but it does not make any guarantees for any SEO improvements in search engines.
But it does offer a complete set of SEO audits which can be utilized by persons such as webmasters and developers. It is Google’s intention to add a whole new suite of features to the lighthouse tool such as more in-depth audits and further guidance on how to get the best from the tool.
If you’re not using Lighthouse as part of your mobile or technical SEO audits, then you’re missing out on improving the quality of your website.
More information on Lighthouse and helpful links about the tool can be found below:
- Lighthouse – https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/
- Github Lighthouse – https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse
- Lighthouse Chrome Extension – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lighthouse/blipmdconlkpinefehnmjammfjpmpbjk.
- Lighthouse Report Viewer – https://googlechrome.github.io/lighthouse/viewer/
- Contribute to the Lighthouse project – https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
