Release of PageSpeed.ONE Tester Version 4.2: More URLs, Third-Party JS, INP, More Slack and Teams

We are delighted to announce the launch of the latest version of pagespeed.one, our tool for web speed monitoring.

What's new in version 4.2? Let's take a look at the key updates.

Ability to Insert Multiple URLs#

In the default settings, you can monitor 5 URLs of your site and 4 additional domains, like competitors, in one test suite.

For most users, this is sufficient as we closely monitor only the main page types, and many operators don't have more than one domain.

However, some of you have expressed interest in monitoring more URLs and domains, so we've enhanced this feature. Now, it's possible for a small additional fee.

Up to 10 URLs for when you have a large number of unique web templates.

New Metric: "Total Blocking Time of Third-Party JS"#

It's common to hear developers blame poor web performance on third-party JavaScript—analytics, personalization tools, chats, and other components inserted via GTM. But that's not always the case.

To help you assess the impact of third parties on your web speed, you can now compare the total blocking time (TBT metric) with the third-party blocking time (3PBT):

The total JavaScript blocking time on this site is enormous, but third parties don't significantly contribute to it.

INP Metric in Core Web Vitals#

As you probably know, from March 12, Google will replace the FID metric with the brand-new Interaction to Next Paint (INP) in web speed evaluations.

We've already updated all relevant dashboards. We believe that the INP metric is far superior for measuring interaction delays, so we're completely removing FID from reports.

This needs tuning; INP is high, and some interactions will be very, very slow.

It's important to note that INP can only be measured on real users, so the metric is only available in Chrome UX Report reports.

In synthetic data, you can focus on the auxiliary TBT (Total Blocking Time) metric, which, combined with Trace output and tuning in Chrome DevTools, can help you optimize INP.

Settings: More Slack/Teams Channels#

We're adding another user-requested feature to Settings: the ability to send notifications to more than one channel within Slack or Teams.

It's common (and advisable) for people from different companies, such as marketing or development, to access a team's reports in app.pagespeed.cz. That's why we've prioritized this new feature.

Watchdog: Reducing Initial Interval to 5 Days#

Our web speed monitoring consolidates all synthetic data in one place and reports changes as they occur. It's an essential tool for the foundation of web speed optimization: monitoring metrics.

Beautifully stable results, and the Watchdog almost has nothing to monitor. But the first rule of speed is: Monitor, because you never know…

The Watchdog typically collects data for 14 days to establish a new baseline, but for new clients of our tester, it now only takes five days. Simply so you can see monitoring results a bit sooner.

Everything mentioned so far is new for users of the PLUS tests.

Let's also look at the smaller or less user-facing adjustments we're releasing with version 4.2.

Odds and Ends: New Features, Bug Fixes, and Technical Updates#

• Demo Project – If you're curious about what PLUS tests look like inside, check out the demonstration example with the Mall.cz test.
• We've added information about testing times to Settings so you can avoid collisions with potential processes running on your sites.
• We've added better X-axis labels to the UI graphs so you can easily identify what you're looking at.
• We've caught bugs like the one with incorrect CrUX data labels in the Domain report.
• We've fixed an issue with email notifications that sometimes arrived without images.
• We've added information to the graphs explaining why values can't be expanded in annual charts.
• We've made a significant technological leap and upgraded to Next.js version 14.
• A major internal task was enabling impersonation and an admin bar to better manage what you see in your tests.
• We've resolved an issue with AWS, which caused an unexpected rise in JavaScript metrics around February 24. Now we know we can't allow AWS to test on AMD processors.

What's Next?#

There's a lot planned for version 4.3:

• We're preparing a separate website for documentation and a "wiki" about web speed.
• In Watchdog, we're tackling the "oscillation around the limit" issue to improve reporting accuracy.
• We'd like to work on better onboarding for new users.
• Finally, we want to start experimenting with our own recommendations, which we plan to gradually incorporate into the tester based on consulting experience.

Do you have a wish or a tip for improving the speed tester? Write to us at info@pagespeed.cz.

The first step to a faster web? Monitoring, for instance, with our PLUS tests.