I was quite excited the other day when James pointed out about the new site speed functionality in the new Google Analytics. I was thinking how useful it would be to see load times for browsers & operating systems – even more importantly loading times for mobile phones, often the connection isn’t as fast which is why there is so much emphasis on it by Google at the moment I think.

Setting Up Site Speed

To setup site speed all you need to do is add a bit more code to the Google Analytics tracking code.

If you’re using the new tracking code you can add the following line after trackpageview:

_gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);

If you’re using the traditional tracking code (not the really old one, the ga.js one, if you’re using urchin.js why are you still reading this blog? Retire already!) you can add the following line after trackpageview:

pageTracker._trackPageLoadTime();

For the full instructions please check out Google’s help center.

The Results

So James setup the new analytics site speed on davidnaylor.co.uk and we’ve got a few days results now, sadly I must say that I’m very disappointed. For some reason it works on Chrome and Internet Explorer, but not with Mozille FireFox (on ours at least).

Also I’m getting data for Windows and Macintosh operating systems, but nothing for any mobile devices, which is a shame as I know how important it is for websites to load fast on mobiles.

So Google, love the idea, but still needs some improvement!