Chart Notes: The Key to Evaluating Website Speed Changes
Chart notes make it easier to evaluate the impact of changes you’ve made to your website.
Our speed monitoring PLUS even adds some notes automatically.
This text will explain not only how to add and modify notes but also our recommendations on how to approach them.
From version 4.10, notes are part of the unified Measurement History view (Log): in addition to notes, you will also see a log of synthetic measurements, manual measurements (beta), and other updates. The overview is available on the Measurement History (Log) page; a summary of changes can be found in the release 4.10 changelog.
Why Keep a Log of Website Changes?
During website development, many changes occur that can affect speed.
Chart notes in our speed monitoring allow you to record these important moments, making it easier to trace the causes of any improvements or deteriorations in metrics.
These events might include:
- Deploying a redesigned version of the website or a regular release.
- Making significant changes to the backend.
- Implementing specific speed optimisations.
- Adding a third-party component to the site (analytics, A/B testing, chat).
Other critical events include changes in measurements themselves, such as changing measured URLs. However, monitoring PLUS handles this automatically, as you will learn below.
Adding Notes to Charts
You can add a note to any day in any chart within the monitoring PLUS:
Notes can be added by hovering over dates in the timeline of all charts.
Clicking below the chart opens a modal window where you can add (or modify an existing) note for that day.
Deployed a new version of the site? Add a note to the chart.
These important changes will then be visible in the charts, providing context for further work and evaluation of changes.
Notes will be visible in all charts, ensuring you won't miss a potential impact on any of the speed metrics.
Automatically Added Notes
PageSpeed.ONE PLUS monitoring aims to resolve as much as possible for you. In some cases, we automatically insert notes:
- Change in Synthetic Measurement Settings When you change the URL in Settings, we add a note to the charts stating "Change in measured URLs".
- Change in Testing Technology For instance, when we upgrade to a new version of the Lighthouse tool, we add a note such as "Lighthouse 12.1". We also inform you about this in our changelog.
These notes are global for all PLUS monitoring clients.
You can recognize them by the [Auto] label in the title or the Automatic tag in the list of notes.
The "Notes" Page
You can view all notes on the Notes page, accessible from the main navigation of each test:
The "Notes" page is home to all changes on the website or in measurements.
What do you see in the image?
- The "Notes" page in the test navigation.
- Option to add a note.
- User notes with the author of the last change.
- Automatic notes added by monitoring PLUS.
Here, you can again add, remove, or modify existing notes, except for those added automatically. All notes and measurements are also neatly organized in the Measurement History.
A Few Tips for Handling Notes
Finally, here are some recommendations on how to work with notes:
- Only Log Important Changes Affecting Speed If you publish a new version of your site several times a week, it's unnecessary to add a note each time. You might soon lose track of the data in the charts. Only log those that could affect speed.
- Don't Forget Changes Beyond Technical Development Design tweaks often impact the CLS metric, while the deployment of third-party components or ongoing A/B testing can affect the INP metric. Be sure to log significant changes in Notes.
- Don't Hesitate to Add Notes Retrospectively Notes best explain the impact of each change and teach you to evaluate the effects of future modifications. Therefore, don't hesitate to add notes retrospectively if you identify a change after some time.
In the future, we are also considering the possibility of automatic note addition through a planned API.
Notes, along with the charts themselves, are a rather understated yet highly useful tool for anyone concerned with the speed development of their websites.
