mortonarb.org website review

4 images could be 1.4 MB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 5.0 s faster on a phone.

About 837 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 1.1 s faster on a phone.

Your mobile performance score is 21. Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

A phone's processor spends 4.4 s on main-thread work while loading, 2.2 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Google Tag Manager, Facebook and reddit and others), adding 1.6 MB and 1.8 s of main-thread time.

Google Tag Manager costs a phone 858 ms of main-thread work and 867 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.

About 102 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 450 ms faster on a phone.

14 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (460 KiB).

Facebook costs a phone 332 ms of main-thread work and 421 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.

reddit costs a phone 326 ms of main-thread work and 28 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.

16 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 206 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

1 file blocks the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining it could save about 150 ms.

Polyfills for old browsers add 62 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.

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 11.5 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the text “Welcome to The Morton Arboretum Pause Homepage Carousel Sli…”.

The layout shifts by 1.005 while loading, so content jumps under the reader's thumb. Good is under 0.1.

The page becomes fully interactive after 20.8 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 9.6 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 909 ms in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

Real visitors wait 237 ms for the page to respond to a tap (75th percentile). Good is under 200 ms.

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-24, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 194 ms to 253 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-24, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.7 s to 1.8 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 6.1 MB in 143 requests on a phone: images 3.9 MB (41), scripts 1.8 MB (27) and fonts 147 KiB (5). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

261027_Drone-fall-color_HH-01-1-1920x1082-c-default.jpg weighs 776 KiB. On a phone connection a single image that size takes seconds.

3 images (1.3 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.

1 image is downloaded at several times the size a phone draws it, for example 261027_Drone-fall-color_HH-01-1-1920x1082-c-default.jpg at 1,920 px wide, shown at 429 px. Resized copies would save about 427 KiB.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 1.74 g of CO₂e: 209.1 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

1 text element doesn't have enough contrast against the background to read easily, especially outdoors on a phone.

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.

Your title is only 20 characters: “The Morton Arboretum”. Between 30 and 65 characters leaves room to say what you do and for whom.

There are 5 <h1> headlines (“Share this page”, “Search Search” and “Welcome to The Morton Arboretum”). One clear main headline is easier for people and search engines.

Your meta description is 200 characters; Google truncates after about 160, so the end of your pitch is cut.

The homepage links to 91 pages on mortonarb.org and 22 external pages.

There is no https://mortonarb.org/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://mortonarb.org/educators, https://mortonarb.org/visit-the-arboretum/faq and https://mortonarb.org/explore/things-to-do use the same meta description. A description written for each page earns more clicks.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 51 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

2 images failed to load on a phone, for example https://ib.adnxs.com/px?consent=1&id=1969664&t=1.

7 of 22 tappable elements near the top of the page are smaller than 24 px, hard to hit with a thumb.

1 error was logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'register')”.

On a phone, there is no call to action on the first screen: visitors have to scroll to find out what to do next.

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: 1 testimonial or review block. 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.

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 575 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, LinkedIn Insight and Meta Pixel and 3 mores (measured from a US location before any click). No consent tool was detected. Visitors from the EU, UK and several US states must be asked first.

Opening the homepage sets 14 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

No known cookie consent tool loads with the page. Some sites build their own banner, and some only show one to visitors from the EU.

Loading the homepage contacts 25 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.