We have been working for some time now to find a better way to reflect the actual download speed from a website while we are running through an audit.

As of Friday 16th January we have introduced a new calculation to address this need.  The new data shows higher download speeds for most sites.  To take account of this we have increased the speed thresholds in the benchmarks used to calculate the Performance score. (otherwise you'd all be scoring 10 out of 10.)  So most sites shouldn't see dramatic changes in their Performance scores but when looking at the detail there may be a significant increase in the download speed figure.

We chose this date so that the new figures would be used in the January Surveys and the beginning of the year is an easy date to remember if you are looking at you trend graphs to see what improvements you have made to your site.

Accurately measuring download speed from out on the internet without using code embedded in every page is difficult and is dependent on a number of factors.  We feel with the new calculation we better reflect actual speeds.

If you'd like to discuss this in more detail please feel free to contact me gevans@sitemorse.com