Google and Microsoft have recently published several posts that indicate that they are going to lay more emphasize on a website’s performance with the likely possibility that performance will play a greater role in determining a website’s search engine rankings. But improving site performance has additional immediate benefits to the webmaster and site owner that include better user retention and activity, an increase in revenue and lower costs thanks to compression technologies.

We already dealt with improving website performance here at G hacks and are pleased that Google has added an experimental feature to the Google Webmaster Tools which displays a website’s performance over time.

The performance graph is “derived from aggregated information sent by users of your site who have installed the Google Toolbar and opted-in to its enhanced features”. Google includes a performance rating in the graph that indicates to the webmaster if the performance is rather fast, average or slow.

Even better is the fact that it will display example pages, their load time and page speed suggestions that will provide tips on how to improve the performance of specific pages and the website. Google suggests to use the Page Speed add-on for Firefox to optimize the website further. Webmasters who have added their website to Google Webmaster Tools can check out the Site Performance feature under the Labs link in the left sidebar navigation.