How long will people wait for websites to load in 2024? Survey says…

Eight seconds, on average. That’s how long people will wait for a website to load in 2024, according to a recent Forbes Advisor survey.

By the numbers. Here’s how long people are willing to wait:

• Less than 3 seconds: 4%
• 3 to 6 seconds: 29%
• 7 to 10 seconds: 38%
• More than 11 seconds: 24%

The risk. When a webpage loads too slowly or is unresponsive, nearly half of searchers (48%) will visit the next website in search results, according to the survey.

Why we care. Every second matters – and you definitely want your sites to load quickly. People could leave and go to your competitor. However, it’s also important to remember that people will likely be more patient if you are a well-known brand (e.g., Amazon) vs. a lesser-known one.

Google’s past advice. Google has basically been pushing 2 seconds since 2010.

• Google’s John Mueller advised making sites that load in less than 3 seconds since at least 2016. However, this was more for crawling reasons vs. ranking reasons.
• In 2017, Google said “the probability of bounce increases 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds.”

About the data. The online survey of 2,000 U.S. adults was conducted by research company OnePoll, on behalf of Forbes Advisor. Results were published earlier this year, here.