Google issues call to make the Web faster

Google Tuesday called on the Web development community to improve the speed of Web pages, posted its own list of performance best practices, and declared that protocols such as TCP/IP and HTML need to be updated or even replaced.

Google's official blog said that protocols such as HTML and TCP/IP were created "when broadband and rich interactive web apps were in their infancy."

Google's speed push more best practices than revolution

In the past 20 years, Google notes, networks have become much faster, more able to handle heavy-duty Web applications and video, and in the past 10 years, JavaScript speed has improved a hundredfold.

For an example of the performance enhancements it has in mind, Google pointed to the recently proposed HTML 5, which has been heralded as a potential game-changer in Web application development. Some HTML 5 features have shown up in browsers, but it could take years to fully implement.

In a video, Google Performance Evangelist Steve Souders said, "If we could come up with changes, enhancements or even alternatives to TCP/IP or HTTP, that might have a significant impact."

Google acknowledged that, while it is a major player on the Internet, it cannot implement changes on its own, and expressed that it would continue to work through standards bodies.

At the same time, Google advocated that Web sites take smaller steps to improve performance today, and the company laid out its best practices for Web developers at a new site, as well as a Google Group to open the discussion to the community.