metropolismag.com website review

About 1.3 MB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 4.8 s faster on a phone.

42 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (979 KiB).

7 images could be 878 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 1.9 s faster on a phone.

5 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 2.4 s.

Your mobile performance score is 30 (desktop: 33). Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

A phone's processor spends 8.5 s on main-thread work while loading, 5.7 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 Google/Doubleclick Ads and others), adding 4.3 MB and 2.8 s of main-thread time.

Google CDN costs a phone 616 ms of main-thread work and 1.1 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.

Google/Doubleclick Ads costs a phone 497 ms of main-thread work and 892 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 508 ms of main-thread work and 513 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 63 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 450 ms faster on a phone.

Hubspot costs a phone 360 ms of main-thread work and 325 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.

osano.com costs a phone 282 ms of main-thread work and 74 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 220 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

About 161 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page.

62 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

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 19.4 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image “A group of people wearing virtual reality headsets at MIT F…”.

The page becomes fully interactive after 35.9 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

The first text or image appears after 6.8 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 11.0 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 1.6 s in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-17, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 96 ms to 115 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-17, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.6 s to 1.8 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 6.5 MB in 192 requests on a phone: scripts 3.2 MB (53), other files 1.3 MB (71) and images 1.3 MB (35). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

3 images (147 KiB) 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.

1 image further down the page (42 KiB) download before anyone scrolls to it. Adding loading="lazy" lets the first screen load first.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 1.83 g of CO₂e: 220.0 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

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

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

1 frame has no title, so screen-reader users cannot tell what it contains.

1 link inside paragraphs relies on colour alone to stand out.

1 tap target is too small or too close together to hit reliably with a finger.

2 images have no alt text, which hurts accessibility and image search.

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.

16 visible links have no text or label, so screen readers cannot say where they go.

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

No meta description, so Google writes its own snippet from whatever text it finds.

Your title is 70 characters, so Google will cut it off around 60: “Metropolis Magazine | The Future of Architecture & Design - Metropolis”.

No Open Graph image (also missing: og:description), 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 87 pages on metropolismag.com and 21 external pages.

There is no https://metropolismag.com/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.

https://metropolismag.com/jobs has no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 46 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

18 of 42 tappable elements near the top of the page are smaller than 24 px, hard to hit with a thumb.

1 third-party cookie is set on load; browsers are restricting these, so whatever relies on them breaks.

4 errors were logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “Failed to load resource: net::ERR_CONNECTION_RESET”.

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

Social proof on the homepage: 1 trust badge. 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.

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 938 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, HubSpot and LinkedIn Insight and 3 mores (measured from a US location before any click). A consent tool (Osano) is installed; check it blocks these until visitors agree where the law requires it.

Opening the homepage sets 16 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 53 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.