WHY SHOPIFY'S PAGE SPEED TEST IS BULL**KS

The world of e-ommerce has experienced explosive growth over the past few years and Shopify has been at the heart of this boom. With lockdowns, store closures, and shifting consumer behavior during the pandemic, businesses turned to Shopify not just as an alternative, but as the future of retail.

But as the space gets more competitive, Shopify merchants are asking: 1) How much does page speed actually matter? 2) And more importantly: Should you obsess over the Shopify speed score?

Let’s unpack what really moves the needle for Shopify store performance, and how to prioritise your efforts for real-world results.

Page Speed & Performance: Why It Matters (and When It Doesn’t)

It’s obvious: slow websites lead to poor user experiences. Customers bounce. Conversions suffer. Your ads perform worse, and yes, Google may rank you lower in some cases.

But here’s the nuance: not every performance score tells the full story. Especially not the Shopify Speed Score, which is often misunderstood.

What Is Shopify’s Speed Score Anyway?

Shopify’s built-in speed report uses Google Lighthouse, a lab-based tool that runs simulations to test your site. While useful for developers, it doesn’t always reflect real-world user behavior.

Even Google’s own engineers confirm that Lighthouse scores don’t directly affect SEO. Instead, Google ranks pages using field data, actual user interactions collected through the Chrome browser.

So what does that mean for your Shopify store?

If your site feels fast to your customers, converts well, and functions smoothly across devices, you're likely in a better spot than your speed score suggests.

Why You Shouldn’t Obsess Over the Shopify Speed Score

Here’s what most store owners get wrong:

1) You can’t fully control the score. Many factors that impact it, theme architecture, Shopify infrastructure, third-party app scripts are out of your hands.

2) Even top-performing websites score “low.” YouTube, owned by Google, has a Lighthouse score in the 40s. Most top Shopify stores average a score below 30.

3) Speed ≠ Sales. We’ve seen Shopify stores generating millions in revenue with “poor” speed scores.

Instead of chasing a perfect number, focus on real business outcomes.

Google's Lighthouse Performance Score is the foundation for Shopify's Speed Score. You would assume that a Google score would be worth paying attention to. In this case, however, it is not the case. The Lighthouse Score is highly technical and has numerous potentially significant recommendations. However, the majority of the suggestions are outside your control. Shopify, your theme developer, or app developers could all follow these suggestions. However, there is not much that store owners can do to change the technical suggestions. The idea of a score is misleading. When you consider something that receives such a high score, one believes that a perfect score is conceivable. So, if you look at the Lighthouse scores of the top 10 most visited websites, Wikipedia, Instagram, and Yahoo! are among the sites. The average score for the top ten websites is 59. Google search receives a score of 84, whereas YouTube, which Google owns, gets a score of 45. Only Wikipedia receives a score of 85 or higher. As a result, by putting this score on a 100-point scale, we might be led to believe that most websites are failing.

What to Track Instead: Real Performance Metrics That Matter

1) Conversion Rate Arguably the most important metric. If your conversion rate is strong, don’t fix what’s not broken, even if your speed score drops due to added functionality like reviews, chat widgets, or personalisation tools.

2) Landing Page Load Time The first impression matters. Your landing pages, especially those from ads should load in under 3 seconds. If they don’t, you risk losing cold traffic before they even browse.

Tip: Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest.org let you test specific URLs under real conditions.

3) User Engagement Bounce rates, session duration, pages per session, these are indicators of friction. If users drop off early or don't engage, performance could be a problem.

Recommended Tools to Measure Shopify Performance Don’t rely on one source. Use multiple tools to get a full picture:

1) Shopify Analyser (by SpeedBoostr)

2) Google PageSpeed Insights

3) GTmetrix

4) Pingdom

5) WebPageTest.org

Each tool offers a slightly different lens, use them to identify actionable, repeatable issues, not arbitrary benchmarks.

What You Can Control (and Should Optimise) As a Shopify agency, we focus on actionable, ROI-driven speed improvements:

1) Compress & lazy-load images 2) Minify code (HTML, CSS, JS) 3) Reduce unused app scripts 4) Use fast, lightweight Shopify themes 5) Delay non-critical scripts (like pop-ups) 6) Limit the number of external fonts and libraries 7) Enable browser caching & content delivery networks (CDNs)

These are the kinds of optimisations that preserve conversions without breaking your design, functionality, or customer experience.

Final Word: Shopify Page Speed Shouldn’t Be Your Obsession

Improving your Shopify store’s speed is smart, but chasing a perfect score isn’t. Prioritise what actually grows your business:

1) Fast, focused landing pages

2) High conversion rates

3) A seamless, mobile-first customer experience

4) Marketing strategies that scale

Want Expert Eyes on Your Store’s Performance? At [Your Shopify Agency Name], we help brands go beyond performance scores to unlock real e-commerce growth.

From custom development to conversion-focused design, we turn your Shopify store into a revenue machine.

👉 Book a Free Site and SEO Audit and let’s make your store faster, smarter, and more profitable.