Get serious about energy consumption

Andy says: “It’s time to get serious about the internet and energy consumption.”

Why is this a big issue now?

“The internet uses a serious amount of energy.

It was estimated that, in 2023, 2/3 of the world’s population had access to the internet. The actual number of devices connected to the internet was estimated to be 3 times the world’s population.

We know that each time a device is connected to a network, visits a website, uses an online app, or anything like that, it creates an HTTP request to a server that consumes energy. All of our web browsing, messaging, emails, app usage, video streaming, and music streaming consume electricity.

Studies have shown internet usage accounts for between 3.6 and 6.2% of the world’s total electricity output. That’s the equivalent of the entire aviation industry’s output in a year. It’s a lot, when you think about it.”

Will cleaner energy production help counteract this issue?

“Internet usage is increasing and it’s only going to continue to increase. The amount of time we spend consuming information on devices will keep increasing as technology improves.

The Paris Agreement in 2025 was really important in this regard. They agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to hold global temperatures well below the increase of 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

It’s not just governments that have made pledges, organisations have as well. Tech giants like Google and Amazon have aims to be net zero. That means that, for whatever carbon they produce, the equivalent is either offset or reduced by renewable energy. Google aims to do that by 2030, and Amazon aims to do that by 2040. However, Amazon does also aim to have 100% of their operations being powered by renewables in 2025.

Many organisations have their own net zero targets. They might be in industries like manufacturing, but they need to be aware that their website plays into those net zero targets as well.

That could mean making sure that hosting is from 100% renewable energy sources. It could mean optimizing their website as much as possible, to reduce the resources that the server uses – especially if they’re looking at an SEO strategy and increasing the number of visits to their website.

The less data a server needs to bring back, the less energy it’s going to consume. I predict that, over the next 5 years, Google’s going to put more importance on page speed and the overall sizes of pages. I think it’s going to adjust the weighting of its algorithms for things like mobile page speed and Core Web Vitals.”

Is this just for ethical reasons or is there a positive business case for it?

“I think it’s both. There’s going to be a change in consumer habits. People will want to see that companies have net zero aims and that the internet is covered in part of that. People will become more savvy about energy consumption and their consumption of the internet.

More and more hosting providers are already providing 100% renewable alternatives. There are already hosting companies that focus on this as a USP, and most are starting to offer it as an option. Implementing a caching policy will also reduce that.

There’s going to be consumer interest in it, but it also makes the web a better place. A faster loading website that’s easier to navigate is going to have happier users – which is only a good thing.”

Do you think the consumer mindset will continue to change as users become more aware of the energy use of their activities on digital devices?

“Absolutely. Although I don’t think it’s going to have an immediate impact right now, I think it’s smart to start thinking about how to prepare for it.

As SEOs, we often say that, from the data we see, page speed and Core Web Vitals don’t make a huge dent in SEO gains. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t be the case in the future. Start planning and preparing for that now.

Consumer habits will change when people are more open to how much energy the internet actually consumes. It’s not just the pure energy needed to take that information off a server and bring it back; they also create a lot of heat. A lot of energy is used to keep servers cool and keep them running.

People have already changed their habits around energy consumption in many different areas of their lives. In the not-too-distant future, people will be gobsmacked that the entire national grid was run off gas and coal. We’re not that far away from having 100% renewable energy, although the UK hasn’t committed entirely to that because some areas are still reliant on coal and gas.

With that in mind, the energy consumption of our internet usage is going to become highly relevant very soon.”

Beyond reducing the size of pages, what are the best ways to reduce server request numbers and page speeds?

“The first thing to look at is your hosting. Can you ensure that your hosting comes from 100% renewable energy, or can you look at carbon offsetting? You could be offsetting some of the carbon usage from your website traffic and hosting through other means, like pledging to plant a certain number of trees each year in order to capture a certain amount of carbon.

Also, implement a caching policy – especially if you’ve got a high-traffic e-commerce store. Each time someone looks at a product and goes back and looks at something else, make sure that’s cached in their browser, so you’re not constantly having to make further requests to the server. Those are simple things that you can start having conversations about.

The longer-term stuff is probably harder. A lot of resource often comes from third-party JavaScript. How much of that is actually being used and is actually needed? Make sure that unpassed JavaScript, that’s not actually being used within the page load, is minimised.

Every time I audit a website, image sizes and huge images are often a problem. Make sure that your images are appropriately sized – and use next-gen formats. If you’re hosting videos on a website, consider putting them in standard definition instead of HD. Obviously, the bigger the video file, the more resource and energy that’s going to consume.”

What tools or software can you recommend for identifying opportunities to cut energy usage?

“There are websites that will estimate how much energy consumption your website uses. Just search for a website carbon calculator, and you’ll get a few results. That’s a good place to start.

Once you’ve realised how much potential carbon you’re creating, you can then begin to figure out how to either offset that or reduce it. You can use simple tools such as Google Search Console, which has your Core Web Vitals information in it. That provides some really good information about places where you can start to reduce the size of pages and the amount that’s being loaded in.

You can also use Google’s PageSpeed Insights for that as well, and the Chrome browser itself has these tools built in.

Another tip is that you can get a free API key from Google, and you can plug that into tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Sitebulb, and many others. Then, those tools will pull in your Core Web Vitals page speed data at regular intervals, so you can create a report and build a picture over time of how you’re progressing and the improvements in these areas.”

In terms of the value of this, Amazon once found that every 100 milliseconds in added page load time cost them 1% in revenue. Are there other ways to convince managers/directors that it’s worthwhile financially?

“Most people know that the longer a page takes to load, the more chance a user is going to navigate back to Google and find something else – especially on mobile. People aren’t going to wait around to get the information they need.

The quicker you can serve that to users, the more likely they are to convert. You tend to see that slow-loading pages on mobile will have a higher bounce rate and lower engagement rates. When you’re looking at user experience, page speed becomes really important.

I’m not going to hang around and wait for something to load for 8 seconds. If I don’t have that page fully loaded in 2-3 seconds, it can be irritating – especially when you’re deep into your research and right in the middle of deciding whether you want to buy a brand-new bike, for example. If you don’t get that information, you’ll go find it somewhere else.

It’s also relative. If you’re used to 3-second load times but you come across a website that loads in 1 second, you’re going to go back to that website because it’s a better experience.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Link building and relevance are big topics at the moment. Spend less time building a large number of links. Instead, spend a small amount of time building the most relevant type of links. Then, you can utilise some of that time for doing things like this.

Additionally, we know that the disavow tool in Google Search Console is going to expire at some point. If you’re spending an hour every week updating a disavow file, you can get some time back there.

You can also spend less time in meetings that you’re either not going to be particularly involved in or you’re not going to get anything out of. I think everyone needs to get better at ensuring that their time is best used. The amount of time you can get back by just not attending meetings is unreal.”

Andy Frobisher is a Freelance SEO Consultant, and you can find him over at AndyFrobisher.com.