Test Settings
Proper configuration is crucial for accurate speed measurement, so please pay close attention to this text.
Before proceeding, ensure you know how we test your websites and understand the differences between speed data from CrUX (Chrome UX Report) and synth. Configuration is particularly essential for professional website speed monitoring using PLUS tests.
In test settings, the following points are essential:
- Choose the URL of your website for detailed testing (synth and CrUX) wisely.
- Select domains (yours and competitors') carefully.
- Set up notifications for changes (email, Slack, Teams).
Now, let's delve deeper into each part of the test settings in pagespeed.one monitoring.
Test Name
Choose a name for your test. Examples: “Web XYZ.cz”, “Competition for XYZ.cz”. If you don't specify a test name, we'll name it after the domain of the first URL. You can change this anytime.
The name serves to identify the test in your team dashboard.
URLs
Enter the URLs of the pages you want to test and obtain CrUX data from (speed for Google users) or synthetic measurement results (from our tests), including Watchdog data.
Set the correct input URLs for testing.
We recommend entering the most important types of pages on your website here. Also, add a label (an alias like “Homepage” or “Product”) to simplify your graphs.
🔐 In free tests, you can enter three addresses, in PLUS tests five.
Note, modifying URL settings will change all graphs, reset the Watchdog threshold calculations, and add an automatic note to the graphs.
These URLs will then appear in the Pages and Technical reports.
Well-chosen URLs meet these criteria:
All important entry page types are represented
For instance, a smaller e-commerce site might include the homepage, product categories, product details, and perhaps a blog post.
Measuring the cart, for example, isn't as crucial because it's not an entry page, but we recommend it for larger websites.
They are the most visited URLs and have CrUX data
Excluding the homepage, you'll have multiple URLs to choose from for nearly all page types. Always select the most visited ones, as they'll be more loaded and influence Google users' data (CrUX) more.
Ideally, these URLs should have their own CrUX data. Not every URL has its own CrUX data. Even on large sites, only dozens of URLs will have their own data. If the entered URL does have data, it will make measuring changes easier for you.
You can easily verify if your URL has its own CrUX data in PageSpeed Insights. Enter the URL and see if data metrics appear under the “This URL” switch.
They are content-rich pages
Always choose page types with more content components. It's common for e-commerce sites to have simpler and more complex page types for categories.
Opt for the content-rich ones, as they better reveal potential user experience issues.
Google Analytics or Google Search Console can help you select suitable page types by showing their traffic.
Beware of URLs with parameters
You might want to enter variants of URLs with parameters, like this:
example.com/some-url
example.com/some-url?id=203
example.com/some-url#anchor
It's important to know that from a CrUX data perspective, all these URLs are identical because anchors and parameters after the question mark are not stored in CrUX data.
URLs are from one domain
For the optimal functioning of Watchdog and other reports, we highly recommend not entering URLs from different domains or subdomains.
Exceptions can occur when different page types “sit” on different domains, such as:
www.heureka.cz
mobilni-telefony.heureka.cz/xiaomi-redmi
Domains
Enter the addresses of your domains. In Domains and other reports, we will display speed data from Google for these domains (CrUX).
Set up your own and also competitor domains.
In addition to the main domain of your monitored site, we recommend adding:
- competitor domains
- language versions of your site
- subdomains of the site (if they receive significant traffic)
Specifying the type of domain will clarify reports and especially email notifications, so don't forget to select them. If you choose a website as “competitive” or “other”, we won't send you change notifications for them.
🔐 In free tests, you can enter three domains, in PLUS tests five.
What if five URLs or domains aren't enough?
Some of our clients find five URLs or domains insufficient. Large websites, for example, have more entry pages that need testing.
Other clients have a large number of language versions of the site they want to monitor in domains. In such cases, it is possible to add more URLs or domains to the test for an additional fee, up to 20. See pricing.
If interested, contact us at info@pagespeed.cz.
How to test websites behind login?
We can also test websites hidden behind a login, but some preparation on your side will usually be necessary.
Testing a site behind HTTP authentication is, of course, possible, just expect a delay in loading speed.
Another option is to detect our bot and remove the login for it.
The second option is authentication via htpasswd. In that case, contact us at info@pagespeed.cz.
Speed Watchdog Alerts
🔐 This feature is available only for PLUS tests.
Receive notifications if Watchdog detects significant deterioration or improvement in the speed of the tested URLs.
Ensure Watchdog reports are sent to where your team communicates.
By default, alerts are sent to the email of all team members until they unsubscribe.
If you use Slack or Teams for internal communication, we recommend adding a channel and having alerts sent there.
It's certainly possible to add multiple channels. One for developers, another for the agency. We recommend naming these channels as well, so you can distinguish them.
More information, including how to set up notifications for Slack or Teams, can be found in the notification help.
Test Start Time
🔐 This feature is available only for PLUS tests.
New in version 4.10 is the option for multiple measurement times (beta) and faster test launches; details in the release 4.10 changelog.
Only adjust advanced settings if you know what you're doing.
In the "Test Start Time" field, choose the time at which speed tests will start each day. This might be useful if testing conflicts with server maintenance, like different cron jobs running at night.
Note, the test start time is indicative. Tests run within several tens of minutes from the set time.
The default indicative test start for PLUS tests is 4
.Is everything set up correctly? Now explore other parts of our speed monitoring and focus mainly on Speed Watchdogs.
