Google Releases Web Site Speedup Software

As part of its "make the Web fast" effort, Google has released version 1.0 of a module designed to improve the very widely used Apache software that's very widely used to host Web sites. The Apache Software Foundation's flagship project is Web server software that delivers Web pages to people's browsers when they request it. It can be extended, and Google believes its mod_pagespeed extension for Apache is ready for use.

Mod_pagespeed technical lead Joshua Marantz and Ilya Grigorik, developer advocate for Google's Make the Web Fast project said that users prefer faster sites and they have seen that faster pages lead to higher user engagement, conversions, and retention. Google offers a big incentive of its own: sites that load faster get preferential treatment on its search results and in its search-ad auctions.