jbu.edu website review

62 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (369 KiB).

About 278 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 1.4 s faster on a phone.

22 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 1.1 s.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (FontAwesome CDN, technolutions.net and Google Tag Manager and others), adding 1.2 MB and 1.3 s of main-thread time.

7 images could be 736 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 650 ms faster on a phone.

Your mobile performance score is 52. Pages that score under 90 lose visitors before the first paint.

FontAwesome CDN costs a phone 459 ms of main-thread work and 163 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.

technolutions.net costs a phone 366 ms of main-thread work and 273 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.

A phone's processor spends 3.8 s on main-thread work while loading, 2.1 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

The page has 2,822 HTML elements. Above 1,500, rendering and every interaction get slower on phones.

About 194 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

14 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 209 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

9 KiB could be saved by minifying CSS.

Web fonts hide text while they load. Setting font-display: swap shows text immediately (about 50 ms).

Polyfills for old browsers add 14 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need.

Critical files load one after another instead of in parallel (3 chains). Preconnecting to key origins and preloading the hero image shortens the chain.

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

Your largest element takes 13.4 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 14.3 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 7.7 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 479 ms in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

The first text or image appears after 2.5 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

29 images have no width and height attributes, so the layout jumps as each one loads.

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-31, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 119 ms to 120 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-31, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.6 s to 1.5 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

4 images are downloaded at several times the size a phone draws them, for example 20261024_sm1_TP_GAME-22.jpg at 2,000 px wide, shown at 292 px. Resized copies would save about 559 KiB.

Your homepage downloads 2.8 MB in 115 requests on a phone: images 1.3 MB (23), scripts 966 KiB (37) and fonts 236 KiB (8). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

Homepage_Quad.webp 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).

4 images further down the page (725 KiB) download before anyone scrolls to them. Adding loading="lazy" lets the first screen load first.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 0.80 g of CO₂e: 96.4 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

19 text elements don't have enough contrast against the background to read easily, especially outdoors on a phone.

Links must have discernible text: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated serious by axe-core.

All page content should be contained by landmarks: 15 elements on the page fail this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

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

Headings should not be empty: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated minor by axe-core.

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

No structured data (JSON-LD), so Google can't show rich results such as your logo, ratings or FAQs.

There are 6 <h1> headlines (“A Premier Christian University in Northwest Arkan…”, “A Premier Christian University in Northwest Arkan…” and “A Premier Christian University in Northwest Arkan…”). One clear main headline is easier for people and search engines.

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

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

1 link has no real href, so search engines can't follow it.

The homepage links to 109 pages on jbu.edu and 23 external pages.

There is no Organization (or LocalBusiness) JSON-LD, so search engines and AI assistants have no machine-readable facts about who runs the site: its name, logo, profiles and contact details.

There is no https://www.jbu.edu/llms.txt, a short Markdown guide to your key pages for AI tools (llmstxt.org). It is optional and few AI tools read it yet, so treat it as a cheap extra.

Your homepage links to https://www.jbu.edu/applicant-portal and https://www.jbu.edu/es/visit/old, which answer with an error. Visitors hit a dead end and search engines drop them.

https://www.jbu.edu/admissions/apply and https://www.jbu.edu/apply all use the title “Apply for Admission at John Brown University”. Search engines can't tell which page to show for a search, so each competes with the others.

https://www.jbu.edu/admissions/apply and https://www.jbu.edu/apply use the same meta description. A description written for each page earns more clicks.

Your homepage links to 1 page by a URL that isn't its canonical one, for example https://www.jbu.edu/apply, whose canonical is https://www.jbu.edu/admissions/apply. Linking straight to the canonical URL saves crawlers a detour and keeps ranking signals on one address.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 76 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

2 errors were logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “Access to XMLHttpRequest at 'https://assets.calendly.com/assets/external/widget.css' from origin 'https://www.jbu.edu' …”.

Your homepage shows a street address but no LocalBusiness JSON-LD, so Google and AI assistants have to guess your address, hours and phone from the page text.

Social proof on the homepage: “more than 2,200 students”. Pairing it with named testimonials or customer logos makes it far more convincing.

The homepage shows no opening hours. If customers visit or call, show when.

Your phone number appears as text but isn't a tel: link, so phone visitors can't tap to call.

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

There is no link to Google or Apple Maps. A directions link is one tap for a phone visitor.

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 2,085 words of visible text.

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

Opening the homepage sets 8 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 31 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.