A good website speed score on Google PageSpeed Insights is 90 to 100, shown in green. A score of 50 to 89 is amber and means the page needs improvement. A score of 0 to 49 is red and means the page has serious performance problems. Most unoptimised small business websites score between 20 and 45 on mobile.
This guide is for site owners who have run a PageSpeed test and want to know what the number means, whether their score is good enough, and what to do about it. It covers the score bands, what usually causes each one, why the mobile score is the one that counts, and why the score is not the same thing as passing Google’s Core Web Vitals. If you have not tested yet, our website speed test will give you a score in about 30 seconds.
Key takeaways
- PageSpeed Insights scores run from 0 to 100. Green is 90 to 100, amber is 50 to 89, red is 0 to 49.
- 67 is an amber score. It is not bad, but it is not good either, and the page will feel slow to some visitors on a phone.
- The score is a lab measurement from a simulated device. Google ranks on the Core Web Vitals assessment from real visitors, which is a separate result on the same report.
- Aim for 90 or above on mobile if you can, and treat 75 as the minimum for a business site.
- The score tells you how fast a page is in points, not in seconds. For time-based targets, read how fast should a website load.
In this guide
- What do PageSpeed Insights score bands mean?
- Is a score of 67 a good PageSpeed score?
- What is a good Google page speed score to aim for?
- Why the mobile score matters more
- The score is not the Core Web Vitals assessment
- How to improve a bad site speed score
- Frequently asked questions
What do PageSpeed Insights score bands mean?
Google PageSpeed Insights runs your page through Lighthouse, an open-source testing tool, and turns several timing measurements into a single performance score. The Lighthouse scoring documentation explains that the score is a weighted average of metrics including Largest Contentful Paint, Total Blocking Time, Cumulative Layout Shift and Speed Index. Each metric is compared against a distribution of real websites, so a score of 50 roughly means “as fast as the median page” on that metric.
The bands, and what typically sits behind them on a small business website:
| Mobile score | Band | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| 90 to 100 | Good (green) | Optimised images, caching in place, little unnecessary JavaScript. The site feels fast on a phone. |
| 75 to 89 | Needs improvement, upper | Fundamentals are mostly right. One or two heavy items remain, often a large hero image or a third-party script. |
| 50 to 74 | Needs improvement, lower | Several problems at once: unoptimised images, no caching, render-blocking scripts. Visitors notice the wait on mobile. |
| 25 to 49 | Poor | Page builder bloat, dozens of plugins or apps, uncompressed images, slow hosting. Speed is actively costing you visitors. |
| 0 to 24 | Poor, critical | The page is barely usable on a mid-range phone. Immediate action needed. |
The score is not linear. Moving from 30 to 60 is usually straightforward, because the fixes are the obvious ones. Moving from 85 to 95 is harder and often means changing how the site is built rather than tuning it.
Is a score of 67 a good PageSpeed score?
No, 67 is not a good PageSpeed score, but it is not a bad one either. It sits in the amber “needs improvement” band, which runs from 50 to 89. In practice a mobile score of 67 usually means the basics are partly done: images may be compressed but not resized, or caching is on but a heavy script is still blocking the page. Visitors on a fast phone will not notice much. Visitors on a mid-range Android on a mobile connection will.
Two things to keep in mind before you worry about 67 specifically.
First, the score is a lab number from a single simulated run. Run the same page three times and you may see 62, 67 and 71. Treat the band as the signal, not the exact figure.
Second, the score is not what Google uses for ranking. Google looks at the Core Web Vitals assessment from real visitors, which appears at the top of the same PageSpeed Insights report once your site has enough traffic. A page can score 67 in the lab and still pass Core Web Vitals in the field, and a page can score 92 and fail. We explain that gap in detail in PageSpeed Insights score vs real-world speed.
So if you scored 67: you are not in trouble, but you are leaving speed on the table, and the fixes that take you to 85 or 90 are usually the cheap ones.
What is a good Google page speed score to aim for?
On mobile, aim for 90 or above, and treat 75 as the minimum for a business website. A score in the 75 to 89 range means the site feels fast to most visitors and the Core Web Vitals are probably in the green. A score of 90 or above is achievable on most well-built sites and on WordPress sites that have had proper optimisation work, though page builder sites with heavy themes can find the last few points hard to win.
On desktop, aim for 90 or above. Desktop scores are almost always higher than mobile because the simulated device has more processing power and a faster connection. A desktop score below 70 points to a serious problem.
A useful way to set your own target: check the mobile score of the sites you compete with for customers. If they are in the 30s and 40s, which is common, a score of 80 is a visible advantage. If they are in the 90s, you need to be there too.
Why the mobile score matters more
Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means it evaluates the mobile version of your site when deciding where to rank it. The mobile PageSpeed test simulates a mid-range phone on a slowed 4G connection, which is far closer to what many of your real visitors experience than the desktop test is.
If you only look at the desktop score you are seeing a flattering picture. Images that load in an instant on broadband take seconds on 4G. JavaScript that runs immediately on a laptop processor blocks the main thread on a phone. Always fix the mobile score first. The desktop score will follow.
The score is not the Core Web Vitals assessment
PageSpeed Insights shows two different things on one page, and confusing them is the most common mistake we see.
The performance score (the number in the circle) comes from a lab test. It is repeatable and useful for diagnosing problems, but it reflects one simulated visit under fixed conditions.
The Core Web Vitals assessment (the pass or fail at the top of the report) comes from field data: real Chrome users visiting your site over the previous 28 days, collected in the Chrome User Experience Report. This is what Google’s page experience documentation describes as the ranking signal. The three metrics and their thresholds are published on web.dev: Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, for at least 75% of visits.
If your site has field data, that section matters more than the score. If it does not have enough traffic to show field data, the lab score and the individual lab metrics are the best guide you have, and the Core Web Vitals thresholds are still the targets to work towards.
How to improve a bad site speed score
If your mobile score is below 50, the same five fixes solve most of it on most sites, and they are worth doing in this order.
- Compress and resize images. Almost always the biggest single win. Serve WebP or AVIF, resize images to the dimensions they are actually displayed at, and lazy-load anything below the fold.
- Turn on caching. Browser caching and server-side page caching cut load times for returning visitors and reduce the work your server does for everyone.
- Remove or defer scripts you do not need. Chat widgets, pop-ups, tracking pixels and embedded feeds each add weight. Audit them and cut anything that does not earn its place.
- Check your hosting. If Time to First Byte is above 600 milliseconds, the server itself is slow, and no amount of front-end tuning will fully hide that.
- Reduce plugin or app bloat. On WordPress and Shopify, every plugin or app can add CSS and JavaScript to every page. Deactivate what you do not use.
For a step-by-step version of this on WordPress, read our guide on how to speed up WordPress. If you would rather have someone else diagnose it, request a free speed check and we will send you a report within 1 working day showing what is dragging the score down and what it would take to fix. We have sped up more than 50 websites through One Blue Pixel, and the same causes appear on nearly all of them.
A score is a signal, not a verdict
A PageSpeed Insights score is a useful diagnostic. It is not a measure of whether your website is any good. A site can score 95 and still be confusing to use. A site can score 72 and convert visitors well. Use the score to find problems, use the Core Web Vitals to judge whether they matter, and take a red score seriously, because your visitors already do.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good Google PageSpeed score for mobile?
A score of 90 to 100 is good and shows in green. For a business website, treat 75 as the minimum acceptable mobile score. Anything in the 75 to 89 range usually means the Core Web Vitals are in or near the green and the site feels fast to most visitors on a phone.
Is 67 a good PageSpeed score?
No. 67 is in the amber “needs improvement” band, which covers 50 to 89. It usually means the fundamentals are partly done but one or two heavy items remain. Visitors on slower phones will notice. The good news is that the fixes from 67 to 85 or above are normally the straightforward ones.
Is the desktop score or mobile score more important?
The mobile score. Google uses mobile-first indexing, so the mobile version of your site is what it evaluates for ranking. The desktop score is almost always higher and gives a misleadingly positive picture of how the site performs for real visitors on phones and mobile connections.
Does the PageSpeed score affect SEO directly?
Not the score itself. Google’s ranking signal is the Core Web Vitals assessment from real visitors, shown separately at the top of the report. A better score usually comes with better vitals, so the two move together, but it is the field data that counts. See does page speed affect SEO for the detail.
Can a website score 100 on PageSpeed Insights?
Yes, on lightweight, well-built pages. Most real-world sites with images, forms, analytics and interactive features will not hit a perfect 100, and that is fine. A score of 90 or above is excellent. Focus on passing the Core Web Vitals thresholds rather than chasing the last few points.
Want us to check your site speed?
Get a free, no-obligation speed report for your website. We will tell you exactly what is slowing it down and what to do about it.