Your page takes a lot of data to load

Applies to

every page

Typical severity

medium

Effect on conversions

medium

Effort to fix

Quick to fix

What to look for

Over 3MB transferred on first load.

Why it matters

Page weight is the total amount of data a browser downloads to show your page: HTML, CSS, scripts, fonts, images and video. Every extra megabyte takes time to arrive, especially on a phone with a weak signal.

Heavy pages are slower to load and use up visitors' mobile data. They also tend to be slow to respond once loaded, because large scripts take time to run on cheaper phones.

What good looks like

We measure the total data transferred on the first load of the page on desktop. The page fails when it is over 3MB. Over 6MB is marked as high severity. Lighter is better: many fast small business pages load in well under 2MB.

How to check it yourself

1. Open the page in Chrome and open developer tools (F12). Go to the Network tab.
2. Tick Disable cache, then reload the page.
3. At the bottom of the panel you'll see the number of requests and the amount transferred.
4. Click the Size column to sort by size and find the biggest files. Images, videos and large scripts usually top the list.
5. PageSpeed Insights also reports total size under Avoid enormous network payloads, with the biggest files listed.

How to fix it

• Compress and resize images. Serve them at the size they're shown, in WebP or AVIF.
• Lazy-load images and videos below the first screen.
• Don't auto-play large background videos, especially on mobile.
• Remove unused plugins, scripts and third-party tags such as old tracking pixels and chat widgets.
• Limit web fonts to the weights you actually use, and serve them as WOFF2.

<!-- Below-the-fold image: lazy-loaded, sized, modern format -->
<img src="/gallery-1.webp" width="600" height="400"
     loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Finished kitchen in Harrogate">

Common mistakes

• Uploading original photos straight from a camera or phone.
• Installing a plugin for every small feature, each adding its own scripts.
• Loading a whole icon font or animation library for a handful of uses.
• Lazy-loading the hero image, which slows the main content instead.

AgoraScan measures this automatically on every page it audits, on desktop and mobile.

Based on

• HTTP Archive Web Almanac