Track Lighthouse scores over time
Lighthouse score history done right
Google’s Lighthouse report is a fantastic tool, but focusing only on the performance number means you’re missing the full story. You might improve your load speed from an 85 to a 95, but what if that change accidentally broke an ARIA attribute, causing your Accessibility score to drop from 100 to 70?
Without a historical record of all four Lighthouse categories, these trade-offs are invisible. You can’t see the true impact of your work or ensure that improvements in one area don’t cause regressions in another.
Track lighthouse scores over time with Speedalyze.
What are Lighthouse scores?
Lighthouse is Google’s open-source tool for auditing the quality of web pages. It provides a comprehensive report across four major categories, all of which are critical for a successful website. Speedalyze helps you track lighthouse scores historically.
Performance
Measures load speed and responsiveness. This includes all the Core Web Vitals metrics like LCP and INP, telling you how fast your page feels to users.
Accessibility
Measures how usable your page is for people with disabilities. It checks for things like color contrast, proper ARIA roles, and keyboard navigation.
Best Practices
Measures modern web development standards. This includes security checks (like HTTPS usage), code health, and avoiding deprecated APIs.
SEO
Measures how well your page is optimized for search engine crawlers. It checks for basic on-page factors like having a valid title tag and being indexable.
These metrics are tested in controlled lab conditions and, when available, supplemented by anonymized real-world performance data (Called CRuX, or Chrome Real User Experience). Each lighthouse score is a crucial Google ranking factor. Falling short can cost you traffic, conversions, and customer trust. It’s therefore important you track lighthouse scores over time so you can ensure a well-optimized website.
Why track Lighthouse scores history?
Point-in-time tests give you a snapshot, but a true understanding of your site’s health requires tracking trends. By tracking the history of all four Lighthouse scores, you can:
- Prevent negative trade-offs: Make sure your performance optimizations don’t harm your accessibility or SEO
- Empower your whole team: Give developers, SEOs, and content managers the specific data they care about most
- Create a holistic health record: Build a comprehensive record of your site’s overall quality and compliance over time
How to improve your Lighthouse scores
Improving Performance
Compress and optimize images
Compress your images with modern formats like WebP to dramatically reduce file size and speed up download times
Reduce server response times
Reduce server response times by upgrading your hosting plan and using caching to improve your site’s TTFB
Minimize long JavaScript tasks
Break up long-running JavaScript into smaller chunks to keep the main thread free and responsive to user input.
Improving Accessibility
Alt text
Provide descriptive alt text for all images to describe their content to visually impaired users and search engines.
Color contrast
Ensure sufficient color contrast between your text and its background to make your content readable for all users.
ARIA
Add proper ARIA roles to custom components to help screen reader users understand your page’s structure and function
Improving Best Practices
Security
Serve your entire website over HTTPS to encrypt network traffic and protect user data from being intercepted
Console logs
Regularly check the browser console for errors to catch bugs and prevent broken functionality from reaching users
Update libraries
Avoid including vulnerable JavaScript libraries by regularly updating your dependencies to patch known security holes
Improving SEO
Unique titles
Write unique and descriptive title tags and meta descriptions for every page to improve your search appearance
Crawlable links
Ensure all internal links are crawlable <a> tags with href attributes so search engines can discover your pages
Schema markup
Implement structured data to help search engines understand your content and earn rich snippets
Who benefits from continuous Lighthouse score monitoring?
Web agencies
Prove ROI with before and after performance reports
Developers
Catch regressions as soon as they happen
Site owners
Maintain rankings and UX without constant manual checks
E-commerce teams
Protect checkout speed and prevent lost sales
Frequently asked questions
What is considered a good Lighthouse score
While the target can vary, a “good” score in any Lighthouse category is generally considered to be 90 or above. Scores from 50-89 are flagged as “needs improvement,” and anything below 50 is “poor.” The goal is to get all four of your main scores into the green (90+).
How often should I check my Lighthouse scores
Manually checking your scores weekly or monthly is a common practice, but it leaves large gaps where regressions can go unnoticed. The best practice is to use an automated tool like Speedalyze that checks your key pages daily. This continuous monitoring ensures you catch issues within 24 hours of them appearing.
Can a good Performance score hide a bad SEO score
Yes, absolutely. The four Lighthouse categories are scored independently. It is very common for a page to have excellent performance (a score of 95+) but fail basic SEO or accessibility checks. This is why it’s critical to monitor all four scores, as focusing only on performance can create significant blind spots.
Does Speedalyze use the official Google Lighthouse API
Yes. We use the official, latest version of the PageSpeed Insights API, which runs Google Lighthouse under the hood. This means you are getting the most accurate, credible, and up-to-date data directly from Google’s own testing infrastructure, for every scan
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