merrell.com website review

18 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 4.3 s.

About 2.3 MB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 1.2 s faster on a phone.

80 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (1.3 MB).

A phone's processor spends 20.1 s on main-thread work while loading, 13.0 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

About 315 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 1.5 s faster on a phone.

Your mobile performance score is 26 (desktop: 27). Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

The page has 3,021 HTML elements. Above 1,500, rendering and every interaction get slower on phones.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Google CDN, Google Tag Manager and ContentSquare and others), adding 3.9 MB and 3.7 s of main-thread time.

47 images could be 3.8 MB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen.

Google CDN costs a phone 835 ms of main-thread work and 1.9 MB 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 917 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

Google Tag Manager costs a phone 679 ms of main-thread work and 652 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.

ContentSquare costs a phone 567 ms of main-thread work and 189 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.

isstarsbuilding.com costs a phone 544 ms of main-thread work and 59 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.

Polyfills for old browsers add 153 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 300 ms faster on a phone.

PayPal costs a phone 350 ms of main-thread work and 372 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.

51 KiB could be saved by minifying CSS.

62 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

Web fonts hide text while they load. Setting font-display: swap shows text immediately (about 100 ms).

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.

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.

Your largest element takes 25.6 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image “Brown Merrell slip-ons worn beside a fireplace.”.

Visually, the page fills in at 25.6 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

The page becomes fully interactive after 75.0 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 3.3 s in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

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

Real visitors wait 2.8 s for the largest content to appear (75th percentile). Good is under 2.5 s.

Real visitors wait 269 ms for the page to respond to a tap (75th percentile). Good is under 200 ms.

Real visitors see the first content after 2.1 s (75th percentile). Good is under 1.8 s.

Real visitors wait 925 ms for your server to start answering (75th percentile). Good is under 800 ms.

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

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-03, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 229 ms to 241 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-03, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.7 s to 1.7 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 15.4 MB in 438 requests on a phone: images 6.2 MB (121), scripts 6.0 MB (131) and other files 1.6 MB (134). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

12 images are downloaded at several times the size a phone draws them, for example fc-moab3-product-hero-img.png at 1,416 px wide, shown at 358 px. Resized copies would save about 1.7 MB.

fc-moab3-product-hero-img.png weighs 491 KiB. On a phone connection a single image that size takes seconds.

38 images (4.7 MB) are JPEG, PNG or GIF. The same pictures as WebP or AVIF are usually much smaller at the same quality, and every current browser shows them.

19 images further down the page (2.0 MB) 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 4.36 g of CO₂e: 523.3 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

12 buttons have no accessible name, so screen readers announce just “button”.

7 tap targets are too small or too close together to hit reliably with a finger.

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

All page content should be contained by landmarks: 3 elements on the page fail 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.

1 form field has no label, so screen readers announce an empty box and autofill guesses.

Alternative text of images should not be repeated as text: 4 elements on the page fail this check, rated minor by axe-core.

Structured data found (Organization and WebSite) but with 1 problem, for example “Organization: url points at a different host (https://www.wolverineworldwide.com/)”.

7 links have no real href, so search engines can't follow them.

The homepage links to 344 pages on merrell.com and 62 external pages.

There is no /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.

/BE/fr_BE/home and /FR/fr_FR/home all use the title “Chaussures Outdoor & Vêtements pour la Randonnée et la Course sur Tra…”, and 2 other titles repeat too. Search engines can't tell which page to show for a search, so each competes with the others.

/US/en/content has no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

/BE/fr_BE/home and /FR/fr_FR/home use the same meta description. A description written for each page earns more clicks.

/UK/en_GB/home, /BE/fr_BE/home, /BE/nl_BE/home, /DE/de_DE/home, /ES/es_ES/home and /FR/fr_FR/home 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 92 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

2 images failed to load on a phone, for example https://gtm.merrell.com/c2/100030020/track_page_view?payload=%7B%22title%22%3A%22Merrell%20Official%3A%20Top%20Rated%20Hiking%20Footwear%20%26%20Outdoor%20Gear%22%2C%22url%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.me.

2 third-party cookies are set on load; browsers are restricting these, so whatever relies on them breaks.

2 errors were logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “Connecting to 'https://use.typekit.net/uuu1cen.css' violates the following Content Security Policy directive: "connect-…”.

Chrome logged issues while loading the page (“Cookie”).

Large scripts ship without source maps.

No Strict-Transport-Security header, so browsers may still try plain http first on a return visit.

X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff is missing, so browsers may guess file types.

Opening https://merrell.com goes through 4 redirects before the homepage loads.

3 links go through two or more redirects, for example http://www.merrell.jp/.

No Referrer-Policy header, so full URLs can leak to the sites you link to.

No Permissions-Policy header to switch off camera, microphone and location for embedded content.

There is no /.well-known/security.txt telling researchers how to report a security problem to you.

merrell.com has no CAA record, so any certificate authority may issue a certificate for it. A CAA record naming your provider (for example letsencrypt.org) closes that door.

merrell.com's DNS answers are not signed. DNSSEC stops attackers forging them to send visitors or email elsewhere; most registrars switch it on in a click, though most sites still run without it.

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: 2 customer or partner logos. 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.

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

The homepage carries about 776 words of visible text.

Email authentication: SPF record 25 points, plus 15 when it ends in -all (10 for ~all); DMARC record 25, plus 25 for a reject policy (15 for quarantine); a DKIM key on a common selector 10.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel and Microsoft Ads and 6 mores (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 34 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 51 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.