edx.org website review

About 1.0 MB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 7.4 s faster on a phone.

11 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 3.3 s.

About 501 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 2.4 s faster on a phone.

9 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (183 KiB).

Your mobile performance score is 19 (desktop: 37). Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

A phone's processor spends 7.1 s on main-thread work while loading, 3.9 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Google CDN, Google Tag Manager and Other Google APIs/SDKs and others), adding 1.2 MB and 818 ms of main-thread time.

Google CDN costs a phone 383 ms of main-thread work and 731 KiB of downloads while your page loads. Loading it after the page is usable, or only on the pages that need it, takes that off the critical path.

Google Tag Manager costs a phone 327 ms of main-thread work and 381 KiB of downloads while your page loads. Loading it after the page is usable, or only on the pages that need it, takes that off the critical path.

20 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 356 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

Polyfills for old browsers add 21 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 300 ms faster on a phone.

The page has 2,312 HTML elements. Above 1,500, rendering and every interaction get slower on phones.

2 images could be 56 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

29 KiB JavaScript is shipped twice across bundles. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

Scripts make the browser recalculate the layout repeatedly while the page loads, which wastes processor time on phones.

Real Chrome users on phones do not pass Google's Core Web Vitals on this page (28-day field data from the Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab)). Google uses this in ranking.

Real visitors wait 6.8 s for the largest content to appear (75th percentile). Good is under 2.5 s.

Your largest element takes 30.5 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image.

The page becomes fully interactive after 30.5 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 14.0 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

The first text or image appears after 5.9 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 1.7 s in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

Real visitors wait 428 ms for the page to respond to a tap (75th percentile). Good is under 200 ms.

For real visitors the layout shifts by 0.16 (75th percentile). Good is under 0.1.

Real visitors see the first content after 2.5 s (75th percentile). Good is under 1.8 s.

Real visitors wait 1.1 s for your server to start answering (75th percentile). Good is under 800 ms.

The layout shifts by 0.208 while loading, so content jumps under the reader's thumb. Good is under 0.1.

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-17, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 228 ms to 213 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 5.3 MB in 136 requests on a phone: scripts 2.4 MB (53), other files 1.6 MB (47) and stylesheets 535 KiB (12). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

image is on the first screen but marked loading="lazy", so the browser waits before fetching it and the page looks finished later. Load it eagerly (and give it fetchpriority="high" if it is the main image).

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 1.49 g of CO₂e: 178.6 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

Heading levels should only increase by one: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

Landmarks should have a unique role or role/label/title (i.e. accessible name) combination: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

2 form fields have no label, so screen readers announce an empty box and autofill guesses.

1 visible link has no text or label, so screen readers cannot say where it goes.

Elements with visible text labels do not have matching accessible names. (1 element).

There is no <h1>, so neither visitors nor Google get a clear main headline.

Your title is 70 characters, so Google will cut it off around 60: “edX | Online Courses, Certificates & Degrees from Leading Institutions”.

No Open Graph image, so links shared on LinkedIn, Slack or Facebook show no preview picture.

5 links use generic text like “click here” or “learn more”, which tells Google nothing about the page behind them.

The homepage links to 86 pages on edx.org and 14 external pages.

The HTML your server sends has 831 of the 1,498 words a browser shows. AI crawlers don't run JavaScript, so they miss the rest.

Your homepage links to 1 page by a URL that isn't its canonical one, for example https://www.edx.org/masters/micromasters/mitx-finance, whose canonical is https://www.edx.org/learn/finance-related-courses. Linking straight to the canonical URL saves crawlers a detour and keeps ranking signals on one address.

https://www.edx.org/offers, https://www.edx.org/executive-education/massachusetts-institute-of-technology-artificial-intelligence-implications-for-business-strategy, https://www.edx.org/learn/artificial-intelligence/harvard-university-cs50-s-introduction-to-artificial-intelligence-with-python, https://www.edx.org/executive-education/university-of-oxford-artificial-intelligence-programme, https://www.edx.org/executive-education/harvard-university-cybersecurity-managing-risk-in-the-information-age and https://www.edx.org/learn/python/the-georgia-institute-of-technology-computing-in-python-i-fundamentals-and-procedural-programming and 4 others have no <h1> headline, so visitors and search engines get no clear main topic.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 79 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

4 errors were logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “[Monarch] [object Object]”.

Large scripts ship without source maps.

Social proof on the homepage: 4 trust badges. Pairing it with named testimonials or customer logos makes it far more convincing.

No phone number or email link on the homepage, so ready-to-buy visitors have one fewer way to reach you.

There is no form on the homepage, so every lead has to click through to another page first.

No guarantee or risk reducer (money-back, free trial, no credit card) is mentioned, which is often what tips a hesitant visitor.

The homepage carries about 1,498 words of visible text.

The page uses urgency cues (a countdown or limited-time wording).

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager (measured from a US location before any click). A consent tool (OneTrust) is installed; check it blocks these until visitors agree where the law requires it.

Opening the homepage sets 10 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 11 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.