Italy protagonist of the second day of Google I/O 2019. Virgilio Sport taken as an example for the techniques used to improve web performance
If the first day was dedicated to the presentation of the new Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL and the novelties of Android Q, the second day of Google I/O 2019 was characterized by technical speeches aimed primarily at developers and technicians in the world of Big G. They talked, for example, about the new frameworks for Android app development, user data protection and device security. Not only: a lot of space was also dedicated to the performance of websites and to the strategies to be adopted to improve the positioning of information portals.
In this scenario, Italy was the protagonist. Virgilio Sport, vortal of Italiaonline group dedicated to sports news, was chosen by Google as a case study for the talk "Speed at Scale: Web Performance Tips and Tricks from the Trenches". During the talk, the strategies and techniques adopted on Virgilio Sport to improve its performance (especially page loading speed) and organic positioning were described.
As mentioned, much space was also dedicated to Google's efforts to create tools that facilitate users in the management and protection of their personal data. So new features have been created, both for web services and for Android, that will allow to decide how and when Google can have access to our personal information.
Virgilio Sport, organic visits up 45% in three weeks
From the stage of the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Google's technicians have taken Virgilio Sport's strategy as an example to show how it is possible to reduce the loading time of pages and, in this way, to grow quickly and substantially the organic traffic of a portal. Thanks to the implementation of Google's AMP modules (tools that speed up page loading on mobile devices) and the adoption of article prefetching techniques (i.e., content is loaded initially, so that it appears immediately on the page), pages are loaded in less than a second. This has allowed Virgilio Sport to improve its organic ranking and increase the volume of traffic coming from web searches by 45%.
Google I/O 2019, focus on privacy and security
On the security and privacy defense front, however, Google unveiled new tools and features that allow users to better manage their data. In the Google Account, for example, a section will be included that allows you to choose how long data and information relating to our activity (online searches, travel history, etc.) should be kept, while in Chrome a function will be implemented that allows you to immediately stop tracking by cookies and other modules designed to study our online behavior. On the security front, however, it has been confirmed the intention to release Android security updates through the Play Store, so as to speed up and facilitate their installation by users.