popsci.com website review

About 967 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 4.1 s faster on a phone.

92 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (932 KiB).

4 images could be 538 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 2.8 s faster on a phone.

A phone's processor spends 12.6 s on main-thread work while loading, 6.8 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

Your mobile performance score is 31. Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (ziffstatic.com, DoubleVerify and Google Tag Manager and others), adding 2.2 MB and 3.2 s of main-thread time.

ziffstatic.com costs a phone 637 ms of main-thread work and 623 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/Doubleclick Ads costs a phone 567 ms of main-thread work and 546 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.

DoubleVerify costs a phone 595 ms of main-thread work and 240 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 568 ms of main-thread work and 494 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.

8 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 400 ms.

Pubmatic costs a phone 379 ms of main-thread work and 106 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 345 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

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

Polyfills for old browsers add 9 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 50 ms faster on a phone.

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.

3 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

Your largest element takes 27.5 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the element shown below.

The page becomes fully interactive after 50.3 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 12.7 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 2.1 s in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

The first text or image appears after 3.6 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-03, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.5 s to 2.3 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

1 image 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 105 ms to 113 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 5.3 MB in 1,033 requests on a phone: scripts 2.7 MB (79), images 1.0 MB (277) and fonts 843 KiB (6). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 1.50 g of CO₂e: 180.1 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

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

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

Elements must only use permitted ARIA attributes: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated serious by axe-core.

1 element has a tabindex above 0, which scrambles the keyboard order.

1 image has no alt text, which hurts accessibility and image search.

All page content should be contained by landmarks: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

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

Headings skip levels (h1 → h3), which makes the page harder to scan with a screen reader.

Your meta description is 164 characters; Google truncates after about 160, so the end of your pitch is cut.

No XML sitemap at https://www.popsci.com/sitemap_index.xml, so Google discovers your pages only by following links.

1 link use generic text like “click here” or “learn more”, which tells Google nothing about the page behind it.

The homepage links to 175 pages on popsci.com and 26 external pages.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 104 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

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

21 of 34 tappable elements near the top of the page are smaller than 24 px, hard to hit with a thumb.

The page uses 1 deprecated browser API that will stop working in future browsers (“Unload event listeners are deprecated and will be removed.”).

1 error was logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “Failed to load resource: net::ERR_SOCKET_NOT_CONNECTED”.

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

Requests the notification permission on page load.

Large scripts ship without source maps.

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

No testimonials, customer logos, ratings or customer counts on the homepage: nothing tells a new visitor that others already trust you.

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 869 words of visible text.

The page uses urgency cues (a countdown or limited-time wording).

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Amazon Ads, Criteo, Google Ads, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager and 2 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 29 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 62 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.