CategoryOptimization

May 28, 2025 — The web is mired in a struggle to eliminate third-party cookies, with the World Wide Web Consortium Technical Architecture Group leading the charge. But there are obstacles preventing this from happening, and, as a result, many essential web features continue to rely on cookies to function properly. That’s why detecting third-party cookie blocking isn’t just good technical hygiene but a frontline defense for user experience. Read more…

March 6, 2025 — Struggling with slow Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)? Newly introduced by Google, LCP subparts help you pinpoint where page load delays come from. Now, in the Chrome UX Report, this data provides real visitor insights to speed up your site and boost rankings. Matt Zeunert unpacks what LCP subparts are, what they mean for your website speed, and how you can measure them. Read more…

February 12, 2025 — Optimizing web performance means looking beyond surface-level metrics. Time to First Byte (TTFB) is crucial, but improving it requires more than tweaking server response time. Matt Zeunert breaks down what TTFB is, what causes its poor score, and why reducing server response time alone isn’t enough for optimization and often won’t be the most impactful change you can make to your website. Read more…

January 9, 2025 — We know that browsers do all sorts of different things under the hood. One of those things is the way they not only fetch resources like images and scripts from the server but how they prioritize those resources. Chrome and Safari have implemented a “Tight Mode” that constrains which resources are loaded and in what order, but they each take drastically different approaches to it. With so little information about Tight Mode available, this article attempts a high-level explanation of what it is, what triggers it, and how it is treated differently in major browsers. Read more…

November 5, 2024 — Feeling good with your Lighthouse score of 100%? You should! But you should also know that you’re only looking at part of the performance picture. Learn how Lighthouse scores are measured differently than other tools, the impact that has on measuring performance metrics, and why you need real-user monitoring for a complete picture. Read more…

May 28, 2024 — Application frameworks have built whole ecosystems on top of them. Let’s take a closer look at serverless platforms such as Netlify’s Platform Primitives and explore how they can increase our productivity with a serverless fullstack experience. Read more…

April 16, 2024 — The three Core Web Vitals metrics don’t only tell you how visitors experience your website but also impact your Google search result rankings. In this article, we’ll look at what Core Web Vitals are, how they are measured, and how you can use DebugBear to monitor them continuously. Read more…

February 27, 2024 — The Performance API is a set of standards for measuring and evaluating performance metrics with JavaScript. This article demonstrates how to use the Performance API to generate performance metrics directly in the DOM to create your own reporting. Read more…

December 7, 2023 — Starting in March 2024, Interaction to Next Paint will formally replace First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital metric. Learn how the two metrics differ, why we needed a new way to measure interaction responsiveness, and how you can start optimizing the performance of your site now for a seamless transition to the latest Core Web Vital metric. Read more…

October 31, 2023 — Take a closer look at how various performance tools audit and report on performance metrics, such as core web vitals. Geoff Graham answers a set of common questions that pop up during performance audits. Read more…