All about Google Lighthouse

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Google Lighthouse

Google Lighthouse is a tool for auditing, measuring and analysing the performance, accessibility and best practice of websites.

It allows developers and site owners to improve their content to offer a better user experience.

In this article, we'll take you through 10 key points about Google Lighthouse and how it can help you optimise your site.

1. What is Google Lighthouse?

Google Lighthouse is a open-source tool developed by Google a tool for evaluating and improving the quality of websites based on various metrics relating to performance, accessibility, Progressive Web Apps, SEO and many other aspects. This tool aims to meet users' expectations in terms of speed, compatibility and ease of use.

2. Who is this tool for?

This service is primarily aimed at web developers, teams responsible for optimising site performance, and anyone wishing to analyse and improve the general state of their website. It can also be useful for digital marketing agencies in order to obtain a complete analysis of the projects they are working on.

3. How does Google Lighthouse work?

The tool runs a series of tests on the analysed site and generates a report with scores between 0 and 100 for different categories. Each test is based on a series of defined rules that Google considers to be best practice. The aim is to help developers identify opportunities for improving their website.

4. How do I use this tool?

Google Lighthouse can be used in several ways:

As a Chrome extension : Simply install it from the Chrome Web Store, then click on the Lighthouse icon in the browser toolbar to analyse the page you have open.
Directly from Google Chrome : In the developer tools (F12), you can access the Lighthouse tab, where you can launch an analysis of the page in question.
On the command line : For more advanced developers, it is possible to use Google Lighthouse via a command line interface (CLI) by following the instructions provided in the documentation.

5. What are the main metrics analysed?

The report generated by Google Lighthouse is based on five main categories:

Performance : This category measures how quickly the site's pages load and how well they work.
Accessibility : This is used to check that the site complies with accessibility standards for people with visual, motor or hearing disabilities.
Best practice : This section identifies best practice in terms of security, performance and optimisation of the site's code.
SEO : The tool assesses the quality of the site's natural referencing on search engines such as Google.
Progressive Web App (PWA) : Finally, this category checks whether your site meets the criteria to be considered a progressive web application.

6. How do you read the report and interpret the results?

The report generated presents an overall score for each category, as well as details of the site's strengths and weaknesses. Each test carried out is accompanied by an explanatory comment, a score (passed, needs improvement or failed) and documentation to help you understand the importance of the metric analysed and how to remedy any problems.

7. What are the advantages of this tool?

As well as being free and open-source, Google Lighthouse offers a number of advantages:

It offers a complete and detailed analysis of the site.
It's easy to use, thanks to its integration with Chrome and its command-line interface.
It helps detect problems that could potentially harm theuser experienceand therefore improve your users' satisfaction.
It also helps develop progressive web applications, a fast-growing field.

8. What impact does SEO have on performance?

Good natural referencing depends to a large extent on the performance of the site, particularly its loading speed pages and their accessibility. Search engines take these factors into account in their algorithm to rank sites in their results. So a site optimised with Google Lighthouse is more likely to improve its position in the search engine rankings and attract more organic traffic.

9. How can you improve your site's overall score?

First of all, it's important to take on board every recommendation provided by the Google Lighthouse report, even if some of them may seem laborious to implement. The result will be visible on the scores awarded to your site, but also on its overall quality. Next, it is essential to test your site regularly with this tool in order to monitor changes and quickly identify areas for improvement.

10. Is Google Lighthouse enough to ensure the quality of a site?

Although Google Lighthouse is very comprehensive and will help you to significantly improve your site's performance, it does not cover every aspect of ensuring an optimal user experience. It is therefore important to combine this tool with other analysis services, particularly for cross-browser compatibility and feedback from real users.