ndscs.edu website review

6 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 12.3 s.

About 605 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 3.3 s faster on a phone.

6 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (252 KiB).

14 images could be 1.7 MB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 300 ms faster on a phone.

Your mobile performance score is 51 (desktop: 42). Pages that score under 90 lose visitors before the first paint.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Google Tag Manager, Facebook and Other Google APIs/SDKs and others), adding 1.4 MB and 851 ms of main-thread time.

About 95 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 600 ms faster on a phone.

Google Tag Manager costs a phone 587 ms of main-thread work and 879 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 2.4 s on main-thread work while loading, 883 ms of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

Polyfills for old browsers add 38 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

10 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 176 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

11 KiB could be saved by minifying CSS.

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

The first text or image appears after 15.5 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Your largest element takes 32.8 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image “Hero Welding”.

Visually, the page fills in at 15.5 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

The page becomes fully interactive after 33.0 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 225 ms in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

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

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-24, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 110 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 2026-10-24, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.8 s to 1.6 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 8.1 MB in 116 requests on a phone: images 4.4 MB (40), fonts 2.1 MB (11) and scripts 1.4 MB (38). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

17 images are downloaded at several times the size a phone draws them, for example Footer_Aerial.jpg at 1,920 px wide, shown at 390 px. Resized copies would save about 1.1 MB.

26 images (4.3 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.

16 images further down the page (1.7 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 2.29 g of CO₂e: 274.8 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”.

ARIA roles used must conform to valid values: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated critical by axe-core.

Some list items are not inside a list.

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.

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

Alternative text of images should not be repeated as text: 6 elements on the page fail this check, rated minor by axe-core.

ARIA role should be appropriate for the element: 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 meta description, so Google writes its own snippet from whatever text it finds.

Your title is 81 characters, so Google will cut it off around 60: “Home - North Dakota State College of ScienceNorth Dakota State College of Science”.

No Open Graph image (also missing: og:description), so links shared on LinkedIn, Slack or Facebook show no preview picture.

The homepage links to 100 pages on ndscs.edu and 28 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://ndscs.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.

https://ndscs.edu/admissions-aid/apply-to-ndscs, https://ndscs.edu/admissions-aid/visit, https://ndscs.edu/admissions-aid, https://ndscs.edu/academics, https://ndscs.edu/wildcat-life and https://ndscs.edu/student-support and 7 others have no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 54 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

6 of 19 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 “jQuery is not defined”.

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.

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 429 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel and The Trade Desk (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 5 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 20 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.