Page Speed Online has a shiny new API

Andrew

Richard

Webmaster level: intermediate

A few weeks ago, we introduced Page Speed Online, a web-based performance analysis tool that gives developers optimization suggestions. Almost immediately, developers asked us to make an API available to integrate into other tools and their regression testing suites. We were happy to oblige.

Today, as part of Google I/O, we are excited to introduce the Page Speed Online API as part of the Google APIs. With this API, developers now have the ability to integrate performance analysis very simply in their command-line tools and web performance dashboards.

We have provided a getting started guide that helps you to get up and running quickly, understand the API, and start monitoring the performance improvements that you make to your web pages. Not only that, in the request, you’ll be able to specify whether you’d like to see mobile or desktop analysis, and also get Page Speed suggestions in one of the 40 languages that we support, giving API access to the vast majority of developers in their native or preferred language.

We’re also pleased to share that the WordPress plugin W3 Total Cache now uses the Page Speed Online API to provide Page Speed suggestions to WordPress users, right in the WordPress dashboard. “The Page Speed tool itself provides extremely pointed and valuable insight into performance pitfalls. Providing that tool via an API has allowed me to directly correlate that feedback with actionable solutions that W3 Total Cache provides.” said Frederick Townes, CTO Mashable and W3 Total Cache author.

Take the Page Speed Online API for a spin and send us feedback on our mailing list. We’d love to hear your experience integrating the new Page Speed Online API.

Andrew Oates is a Software Engineer on the Page Speed Team in Google's Cambridge, Massachusetts office. You can find him in the credits for the Pixar film Up.

Richard Rabbat is the Product Management Lead on the "Make the Web Faster" initiative. He has launched Page Speed, mod_pagespeed and WebP. At Google since 2006, Richard works with engineering teams across the world.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Andrew Oates and Richard Rabbat, Page Speed Team