There are some really good and free online speed tests from different companies. I have looked around the web and collected my favourites.
Things to Consider with these tests
- Location. Make sure your site loads quickly for the target audience of your site. For example, if the target audience of your site is people in the UK but it loads slowly for UK tests, then consider moving hosts to one in or very near the UK. It is pointless if your site loads in under a second in the USA but takes 4 seconds in the UK if the only people who visit your site are from the UK.
- They aren’t real to life. The connections that some of these sites use may be above average, take this into consideration. Some have settings allowing the connection speed to be changed.
- Test from multiple location if you site is aimed at a global market. You will want you site to be fast from where ever users are coming from.
- Sites can become extremely unresponsive and slow with multiple users. Most of these tests only simulate one user so bare this in mind.
- It can be hard to achieve 100% and may not be worth your time trying to pursue it, try not to fixate on this too much.