Pagespeed Extension and Lighthouse Extension

Is the Lighthouse extension replacing the Pagespeed extension?

Any reason I would install one over the other? (I personally haven’t tested either but plan to)

Hi Tom,

I would recommend the MainWP Lighthouse Extension.

It’s new and runs on the Google PageSpeed Insights API so there is no need to use a 3rd party plugin on child sites.

Also, it’s very important to mention that the Lighthouse extension provides more info. Along with the actual Performance score, it shows SEO, Accessibility and Best Practices scores.

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So it definitely sounds like the Lighthouse extension is the way to go.

Thanks

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It’s indeed nice.

But I’ve scheduled it to run weekly, and it doesn’t run as scheduled . Hasn’t kicked once since I installed it on Nov 10th… is that a know bug?

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Hi all,
I have been using the Lighthouse extension since @bogdan suggested it to me a while ago as a replacement for the old Pagespeed extension and I have found the Lighthouse extension to work fine so far. It is faster than the Pagespeed extension, and much more accurate.

I have got it set to refresh daily, maximum Execution Time of 5 minutes, Maximum Script Time of no limit, and Throttling Delay Time of 0 seconds, if that is any help to others.

With the old Pagespeed extension, even with settings as slow as possible, some websites wouldn’t update at all, and most would show pages that were ignored for some reason, including home pages on some websites. So I am a big fan of the new Lighthouse Extension!

Cheers,
Terry

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Hi Jean-Francois,

Are other scheduled actions working correctly and only this one is failing?

Hi Terry,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am very happy to see you like it.

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@eSIlverStrike if you haven’t seen the Lighthouse extension in place yet, here is a screenshot of one of our accounts.

Cheers,
Terry

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Thanks.

Does it just check the home page or can you add certain pages you want checked for each site?

Does the Google API it uses must fall under your Google Cloud account which once the monthly credit is used up will start costing money (Like how Google Maps API works) or is the API free like Google recaptcha?

@bogdan would be a better one to answer your technical questions, but from my limited experience, there doesn’t seem to be any way to get Lighthouse speeds for internal pages, just the home page. So it would depend on your needs whether you wanted to stick with the old Pagespeed Insights and get figures for all pages, or use Lighthouse for getting figures for your home pages only.

But in my experience, if you can get your home page rated at 95% or so, the inner pages will usually rate higher than the home page because they usually won’t have as much content on them. So the Lighthouse extension is all I really need, and will probably throw the Pagespeed Insights extension soon.

As for the Google API, I can’t remember how I originally got the Pagespeed API, but all I did was copy and paste the Google Pagespeed API into the Lighthouse plugin, and away it went. I am using the Pagespeed API on nine websites, in both Pagespeed Insights and Lighthouse extensions on each, and never been charged by Google. I hope this helps, but hopefully Bogdan can clarify for you.

Cheers,
Terry

Will this data be included in Pro Reports?

Hi Ken,

yes the Lighthouse data can be included in reports by using the following tokens:

Desktop

[lighthouse.performance.desktop] – Displays the desktop strategy Performance score.
[lighthouse.accessibility.desktop] – Displays the desktop strategy Accessibility score.
[lighthouse.bestpractices.desktop] – Displays the desktop strategy Best Practices score.
[lighthouse.seo.desktop] – Displays the desktop strategy SEO score.
[lighthouse.audits.desktop] – Displays the list of performed audits.
[lighthouse.lastcheck.desktop] – Displays the last check time and date.

Mobile

[lighthouse.performance.mobile] – Displays the mobile strategy Performance score.
[lighthouse.accessibility.mobile] – Displays the mobile strategy Accessibility score.
[lighthouse.bestpractices.mobile] – Displays the mobile strategy Best Practices score.
[lighthouse.seo.mobile] – Displays the mobile strategy SEO score.
[lighthouse.audits.mobile] – Displays the list of performed audits.
[lighthouse.lastcheck.mobile] – Displays the last check time and date. 
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Thanks I just copied what you had in the modern template and added it to my custom template (which is just a modified version of modern)

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