OnePoll conducted a survey of 2,000 US adults on behalf of Forbes Advisor to find out how long people wait for websites to load before giving up and closing them in 2024. In 2024 when internet speed is fast, most people do not want to waste their time waiting for a website to load. If a website doesn’t load quickly, searchers get frustrated and often go to another competitor’s website.
According to the survey, searchers wait 8 seconds on average for a website to load. 38% of the respondents of the survey said that they wait 7 to 10 seconds for a website to load, while 29% only wait for 3 to 6 seconds. 14% will wait 11 to 14 seconds and close the website if it doesn’t load. 10% wait for more than 15 seconds, while 3% wait only less than 3 seconds.
The survey also found that 48% of the searchers go to another website if the website doesn’t load quickly or is unresponsive. If you are a well known brand like Amazon, people may wait longer instead of going to a lesser known website. But every second of the searcher matters so they aren’t going to wait for the web page to load if you are not a well known website.
Google has advised website owners to make websites that load in less than 3 seconds since 2016. In 2017, Google said that the probability of searchers going to another website increases by 32% if the website goes from 1 seconds to 3 seconds to load. So, if you want searches to stay on your web page, make sure your website is loading faster.
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