> I don't see why they need to highlight these pages. To lock more sites into their system. Sure, they don't need to, but it's definitely beneficial to them.

> I don't see why they need to highlight these pages. To lock more sites into their system. Sure, they don't need to, but it's definitely beneficial to them. > Apparently they already use page load speed as a signal in their search rankings. I hear this a lot too, but I don't think they really place much importance on load speed. Try searching for "weather", and see how many sites are slow to load, but are at the top of the list. Meanwhile fast-loading sites like http://myfreeweather.com/ http://myfreeweather.com/ are buried in the results. I have no insight to the other multiple factors of their ranking algorithm, but I've never found speed to play much importance.