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I am working in a custom WordPress theme and trying to optimize for higher scores on Google's PageSpeed Insights. I have the homepage scoring 100/100 for mobile/desktop with zero render blocking scripts or styles. The same exact code runs on secondary pages, and all stylesheets and scripts are being flagged as render blocking. I'm at a loss with this.

What would/could be different in PageSpeed Insights that would flag these as render blocking on pages other than the home page?

Also, I'd like to know if the PageSpeed score is an actual SEO ranking factor? Does Google consider the score in organic results? The site loads in ~3 seconds, but Google's score sits around 40 on secondary pages.

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Difficult to say what the problem is without reviewing actual pages. However I would point out that the score is only a guideline. I wouldn't obsess over achieving a perfect score: focus on the actual users' experience.

Page load speed has been a ranking factor in Google since 2010. They're recently reasserted this in light of their move to mobile-first indexing.

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  • I do understand page load speed is a ranking factor. My question was more in regards to the Google PageSpeed Insights score. Does that score it sets on a 0-100 scale factor in organic rankings? I have 3-4 second load times on "Fast 3G" speeds on various tests, but I keep getting very low scores on Google's PSI.
    – AndyWarren
    Apr 18, 2018 at 12:58
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    Well, yes, insofar as speed impacts ranking. If you're looking for a "score X = Y effect on ranking", you're overlooking the fact that there are too many other ranking factors to for that to work.
    – GDVS
    Apr 19, 2018 at 10:25

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