Google PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free web performance analysis tool from Google that measures the speed and user experience quality of web pages on both mobile and desktop devices. PSI combines real-world field data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) — capturing actual page load times experienced by Chrome users — with lab data generated by Lighthouse, Google's open-source automated auditing tool. Together, these data sources provide performance scores across key categories including Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO, alongside Core Web Vitals metrics such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Interaction to Next Paint (INP). The PageSpeed Insights API enables organizations to programmatically retrieve these performance insights, making it possible to automate web performance monitoring, benchmark multiple URLs at scale, integrate performance data into CI/CD pipelines, and feed results into dashboards and data warehouses for longitudinal analysis.

Power end-to-end data operations for your Google PageSpeed Insights API with Nexla. Our bi-directional Google PageSpeed Insights connector is purpose-built for Google PageSpeed Insights, making it simple to ingest data, sync it across systems, and deliver it anywhere — all with no coding required. Nexla turns API-sourced data into ready-to-use, reusable data products and makes it easy to send data to Google PageSpeed Insights or any other destination. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your Google PageSpeed Insights workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.

Features

Type: API

SourceDestination

• Seamless API Integration: Connect to any endpoint as source or destination without coding, with automatic data product creation
• Visual Composition & Chaining: Build complex integrations using visual templates, chain API calls, and compose workflows with data validation and filtering
• API Proxy: Expose curated slices of your data securely with a secure and customizable API proxy that validates and transforms data on the fly
• Request optimization with intelligent batching, retry, and caching to minimize API calls and costs

Prerequisites

Before creating a Google PageSpeed Insights API credential in Nexla, you will need a Google Cloud project with the PageSpeed Insights API enabled and an API key configured for that project.

The Google PageSpeed Insights API uses API key authentication. While the API can be queried without a key for occasional, low-volume use, an API key is required for reliable, automated use in Nexla because it unlocks higher rate limits (up to 25,000 requests per day and 240 requests per minute) and allows Google to associate usage with your project for monitoring and quota management.

Create a Google Cloud Project and Enable the API

1. Sign in to the Google Cloud Console with your Google account.

2. Click the project selector dropdown at the top of the page. In the dialog that appears, click New Project.

3. Enter a Project Name (for example, "Nexla PageSpeed Integration") and click Create.

4. Once the project is created, navigate to APIs & Services > Library in the left navigation menu.

5. In the API Library search box, type PageSpeed Insights API and press Enter.

6. Click on the PageSpeed Insights API result, then click the Enable button to enable the API for your project.

Generate an API Key

7. In the left navigation menu, navigate to APIs & Services > Credentials.

8. Click the + Create Credentials button at the top of the page, and select API key from the dropdown menu.

9. Google Cloud will generate a new API key and display it in a dialog box. Copy the API key value immediately and store it in a secure location, as this is the value you will enter in Nexla.

   To prevent unauthorized use of your API key, Google recommends restricting its usage. In the API key dialog, click Restrict Key (or click the edit icon next to the key later) to limit the key to specific APIs (select PageSpeed Insights API) and, optionally, restrict it to specific IP addresses or referrer URLs. Restrictions can be configured at any time from the APIs & Services > Credentials page in Google Cloud Console.

10. Click Close to dismiss the dialog. Your new API key will now appear in the API keys list on the Credentials page.

For complete details on managing API keys in Google Cloud, refer to the Google Cloud API key documentation and the PageSpeed Insights API getting started guide.

Authenticate

Create a credential in Nexla

The Google PageSpeed Insights API uses a single API key for authentication. The key is appended to all API requests as a query parameter, identifying your Google Cloud project and applying the associated quota and rate limits.

1. To create a new Google PageSpeed Insights API credential, after selecting the data source type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.

2. Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.

3. Enter the API key you generated in the Google Cloud Console in the API Key field. This key authenticates Nexla with the Google PageSpeed Insights API and should be kept secure — treat it like a password and avoid sharing it in public repositories or logs.

4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source creation.

Use as a data source

To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the Google PageSpeed Insights API connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to the Google PageSpeed Insights API, and click Next; or, create a new Google PageSpeed Insights API credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common Google PageSpeed Insights API endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below. Click on an endpoint to see more information about it and how to configure your data source for this endpoint.

Run PageSpeed Analysis

Analyzes the performance of a web page and returns PageSpeed Insights metrics including performance scores and optimization recommendations. Use this endpoint for a general-purpose performance audit of any publicly accessible URL.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed with the target URL as a query parameter.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — the response includes CrUX field data, Lighthouse lab data, and the analysis timestamp.

The url query parameter is required. Append it to the endpoint URL as ?url=https://example.com. The Google PageSpeed Insights API enforces rate limits of 25,000 requests per day and 240 requests per minute per API key.

Run PageSpeed Analysis (Mobile)

Analyzes the performance of a web page specifically for mobile devices and returns PageSpeed Insights metrics including Lighthouse scores and Core Web Vitals. Use this endpoint when optimizing pages for mobile user experience.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed?strategy=mobile with the target URL appended as an additional query parameter.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — the response contains mobile-specific Lighthouse scores and CrUX field data.

Mobile analysis uses a simulated mid-tier mobile device with throttled CPU and network. Results differ from desktop analysis and typically yield lower performance scores due to device constraints.

Run PageSpeed Analysis (Performance, Desktop)

Runs a PageSpeed analysis scoped to the Performance Lighthouse category on desktop, returning Core Web Vitals, performance scores, and detailed performance audit findings. Use this endpoint for desktop-focused performance benchmarking.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed?strategy=desktop&category=performance with the target URL appended.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — the response includes only the performance category results, reducing payload size compared to full audits.

Scoping the analysis to the performance category reduces API response time and payload size. Use this endpoint when you only need LCP, CLS, INP, and other performance metrics without accessibility or SEO data.

Run PageSpeed Analysis (Performance, Mobile)

Runs a PageSpeed analysis scoped to the Performance Lighthouse category on mobile, returning mobile-specific Core Web Vitals and performance scores. Use this endpoint for mobile performance benchmarking and Core Web Vitals monitoring.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed?strategy=mobile&category=performance with the target URL appended.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — includes mobile-specific performance scores and audit results.

This endpoint is recommended for Core Web Vitals monitoring as Google primarily uses mobile performance metrics for Search ranking. Pair with lookup-based macros to analyze a list of URLs in a single Nexla data flow.

Run PageSpeed Analysis (Accessibility)

Runs Lighthouse accessibility audits on a web page, returning an accessibility score and detailed audit findings for WCAG compliance. Use this endpoint to monitor and report on web accessibility across your site.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed?category=accessibility with the target URL appended.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — includes accessibility score and individual audit findings with pass/fail status and remediation guidance.

Lighthouse accessibility audits cover a subset of WCAG 2.x criteria and are not a substitute for a full manual accessibility review. The audit score is weighted based on the impact of each individual check.

Run PageSpeed Analysis (SEO)

Runs Lighthouse SEO audits on a web page, returning an SEO score and audit findings covering meta tags, crawlability, and structured data. Use this endpoint to track on-page SEO health across your web properties.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed?category=seo with the target URL appended.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — includes SEO score and individual audit results covering title tags, meta descriptions, robots directives, and link accessibility.

Lighthouse SEO audits evaluate technical on-page factors. They do not assess off-page ranking signals such as backlinks or domain authority. Run this endpoint alongside the Performance endpoint to combine speed and SEO metrics in a single data flow.

Run PageSpeed Analysis (Best Practices)

Runs Lighthouse best-practices audits on a web page, returning a best-practices score and findings covering HTTPS usage, console errors, and browser compatibility. Use this endpoint to audit web quality and security hygiene.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed?category=best-practices with the target URL appended.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — includes best-practices score and individual audit findings with pass/fail status.

Best-practices audits check for issues such as serving content over HTTPS, avoiding deprecated APIs, and preventing browser-detectable security vulnerabilities. This category does not overlap significantly with Performance or SEO categories.

Run PageSpeed Analysis (All Categories, Desktop)

Runs all Lighthouse audit categories — performance, accessibility, best-practices, and SEO — on a web page for desktop, returning a comprehensive set of scores and audit findings. Use this endpoint when you need a complete view of page quality in a single API call.

• Sends a GET request to https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed?strategy=desktop&category=performance&category=accessibility&category=best-practices&category=seo with the target URL appended.
• Response data is extracted from $ (the root object) — the response includes scores and detailed audit findings for all four Lighthouse categories.

Running all categories in a single call increases response size and latency compared to scoped requests. Be mindful of the API rate limit of 240 requests per minute when using this endpoint for bulk URL analysis.

Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.

Manual configuration

Google PageSpeed Insights API sources can also be manually configured to retrieve performance analysis data for any URL by calling the runPagespeed endpoint, including requests not covered by the pre-built templates or with custom parameter combinations. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, endpoint URL, path to data, metadata, and request headers.

The PageSpeed Insights API base endpoint is GET https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed. The url query parameter is required (for example, ?url=https://example.com); optional parameters include strategy (mobile or desktop, default mobile), category (performance, accessibility, best-practices, seo, pwa — repeatable, defaults to performance only if omitted), and locale. The API authenticates via the key query parameter rather than request headers, so no additional authorization headers are required. The response is a nested JSON object with top-level fields id, loadingExperience, originLoadingExperience, lighthouseResult, and analysisUTCTimestamp — use a path such as $.lighthouseResult or $.loadingExperience.metrics to scope the Nexset to the data you need, and set $.id or $.analysisUTCTimestamp as the path to metadata to retain them as common fields on extracted records. The API enforces rate limits of 25,000 requests per day and 240 requests per minute per API key; monitor quota usage in the Google Cloud Console under APIs & Services > Quotas & System Limits.

Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Create button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the new Google PageSpeed Insights API data source. Nexla will now begin ingesting performance data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.