Why site speed is now a ranking factor you cannot ignore

Google has folded Core Web Vitals into its ranking signals for several years now, and the gap between a fast site and a slow one keeps widening as more of the web catches up.

In practice, three things move the needle most: image optimisation (serving AVIF/WebP at the right size), minimising JavaScript sent to the browser, and rendering pages on the server instead of shipping a blank page and hydrating client-side.

A site built on NodeAscend CMS ships all three by default — every image runs through automatic AVIF/WebP conversion, pages are server-rendered with the App Router, and there is no plugin bloat dragging in megabytes of unused script.