In the year 2009, “Google” grabbed the attention of SEO people by making a number of announcements, whether it was adding some new features or launching different new ways of search. Google was the king of SEO news for the whole year.

Continuing the same, Google’s Software Engineer Matt Cutts has given a hint that from the next year Google may consider page loading time as a ranking factor. In an interview given to WebPro news, Matt Cutts says, “Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast and I think a lot of people in 2010 are going to be thinking more about ‘how do I have my site be fast’”.

In the same series Google recently announced a Site Speed site, which provides webmasters with even more resources specifically aimed at speeding up their pages. Some of these tools come from Google itself while there are a number of tools Google points you to from other developers as well.

It is not yet clear how Google is going to implement site ranking based on site speed, if indeed there is such a plan but if you are serious about your site to perform better in search engines, and yet you haven’t given much thought to page loading time, it’s time to be serious about it.

For more information, visit Search Engine General or WebPro news.