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publicsurplus.com website review

Visit site (opens in a new tab)Reviewed 12 October 202625 issues · 77 checks

This review found 25 issues worth fixing on publicsurplus.com, 5 of them high impact, across 77 checks. The most urgent: avoid multiple page redirects. Your full playbook turns these into prioritised fixes alongside reviews, competitors and channels.

  1. Homepage
  2. Phone render
  3. Links and pages
  4. Google PageSpeed

Google PageSpeed Insights (opens in a new tab), mobile

Site score

89B

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publicsurplus.com (opens in a new tab)
Full-page screenshot of publicsurplus.com (desktop) rendered by Google PageSpeed Insights

How it loaded on a phone

  1. publicsurplus.com at 0.4 s0.4 s
  2. publicsurplus.com at 0.8 s0.8 s
  3. publicsurplus.com at 1.1 s1.1 s
  4. publicsurplus.com at 1.5 s1.5 s
  5. publicsurplus.com at 1.9 s1.9 s
  6. publicsurplus.com at 2.3 s2.3 s
  7. publicsurplus.com at 2.6 s2.6 s
  8. publicsurplus.com at 3.0 s3.0 s

Speed

3 to fix91

  • Avoid multiple page redirects

    1.4 s

    The page goes through 2 redirects before it starts loading, costing about 1.4 s. Link and advertise the final URL directly.

  • Render-blocking requests

    950 ms

    4 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 950 ms.

  • Document request latency

    400 ms

    The HTML itself could arrive about 400 ms sooner: redirects, a slow server response or missing compression delay everything after it.

  • Legacy JavaScript

    200 ms · 8 KiB

    Polyfills for old browsers add 8 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 200 ms faster on a phone.

  • Use efficient cache lifetimes

    150 ms · 30 KiB

    25 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (30 KiB).

  • Reduce unused JavaScript

    150 ms · 27 KiB

    About 27 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

  • 1 long task on the main thread

    1 long task block the main thread while loading, the longest for 82 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

  • 3 third-party services on the page

    3 third-party services load with your homepage (Google Analytics, cloudfront.net and Amazon Web Services), adding 43 KiB and 67 ms of main-thread time.

  • Minify JavaScript

    9 KiB

    9 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

  • Chained critical requests

    Critical files load one after another instead of in parallel (3 chains). Preconnecting to key origins and preloading the hero image shortens the chain.

3 checks passed

  • Mobile performance score: 91

    91/100

    Your mobile performance score is 91 (desktop: 97). That is in Google's “good” band (90 and up).

  • Main-thread work: 0.3 s

    A phone's processor spends 0.3 s on main-thread work while loading, 99 ms of it running JavaScript. That is comfortably low.

  • Server response: 1 ms

    1 ms

    Your server sent the HTML in 1 ms, well inside Google's 600 ms guideline.

Core Web Vitals

6 to fix100

  • Fails Core Web Vitals for real visitors

    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.

  • Real-user TTFB: 920 ms

    920 ms

    Real visitors wait 920 ms for your server to start answering (75th percentile). Good is under 800 ms.

  • Largest Contentful Paint: 3.2 s

    3.2 s

    Your largest element takes 3.2 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the text “Auction: #4092855 - 2001 Am General Hummer H1 HMC4 Slantbac…”.

  • First Contentful Paint: 2.2 s

    2.2 s

    The first text or image appears after 2.2 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

  • 15 images without width and height

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

  • Time to Interactive: 3.9 s

    3.9 s

    The page becomes fully interactive after 3.9 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

7 checks passed

  • Real-user LCP: 1.3 s

    1.3 s

    Real visitors wait 1.3 s for the largest content to appear (75th percentile). Good is under 2.5 s.

  • Real-user INP: 64 ms

    64 ms

    Real visitors wait 64 ms for the page to respond to a tap (75th percentile). Good is under 200 ms.

  • Real-user CLS: 0.00

    0.00

    For real visitors the layout shifts by 0.00 (75th percentile). Good is under 0.1.

  • Real-user FCP: 1.3 s

    1.3 s

    Real visitors see the first content after 1.3 s (75th percentile). Good is under 1.8 s.

  • Speed Index: 2.8 s

    2.8 s

    Visually, the page fills in at 2.8 s (Speed Index), inside the 3.4 s “good” threshold.

  • Cumulative Layout Shift: 0

    0

    The layout barely moves while loading (CLS 0, good is under 0.1).

  • Total Blocking Time: 16 ms

    16 ms

    Scripts block the page for only 16 ms while loading. Good is under 200 ms.

Images and page weight

100

  • About 0.03 g of CO₂ per visit

    0.03 g

    By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 0.03 g of CO₂e: 4.2 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

4 checks passed

  • Page weight: 125 KiB in 32 requests

    125 KiB

    Your homepage downloads 125 KiB in 32 requests on a phone: scripts 56 KiB (3), images 54 KiB (21) and HTML 8 KiB (1). That is a lean page.

  • Images use modern formats

    Every sizeable image is WebP, AVIF or SVG.

  • Images load when needed

    Images below the first screen wait until the visitor scrolls to them.

  • Images are sized for phones

    No image is downloaded at more than three times the size it is drawn on a phone.

Accessibility

Google 100100

  • Headings skip levels

    Headings skip levels (h3 → h5), which makes the page harder to scan with a screen reader.

2 checks passed

  • Every image has alt text

    All 59 images in the HTML carry an alt attribute.

  • 35 automated accessibility rules passed

    axe-core 4.13.0, the open-source engine behind most accessibility testing tools, ran 35 WCAG 2.2 A/AA and best-practice rules on the phone render: 35 passed and 0 failed. 3 mores need a person to judge. Automated rules catch about a third of accessibility problems; the rest need manual testing.

SEO

5 to fixGoogle 9275

  • No H1 headline

    There is no <h1>, so neither visitors nor Google get a clear main headline.

  • No structured data

    No structured data (JSON-LD), so Google can't show rich results such as your logo, ratings or FAQs.

  • No canonical URL

    No canonical URL, so duplicate versions of the homepage (with or without www, with tracking parameters) can split ranking signals.

  • No social preview image

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

  • No XML sitemap

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

  • No X (Twitter) card tag

    No twitter:card tag. X falls back to Open Graph, which is incomplete here.

  • 183 internal links, 0 external

    The homepage links to 183 pages on publicsurplus.com and 0 external pages.

3 checks passed

  • Meta description: 140 characters

    Your meta description is 140 characters: “Public Surplus is the best government surplus auction system available. Find great deals on heavy equipment, cars, buse…”.

  • Title: 43 characters

    Your title is a healthy 43 characters: “Public Surplus: Government Surplus Auctions”.

  • robots.txt in place

    robots.txt is in place.

AI search readiness

1 to fix88

  • No Organization structured data

    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.

  • No llms.txt

    There is no https://publicsurplus.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.

  • Opted out of AI training for 3 crawlers

    robots.txt blocks GPTBot, ClaudeBot and CCBot, which collect pages to train models. That's a legitimate choice and doesn't by itself stop the site appearing in AI answers, which the crawlers above handle.

2 checks passed

  • AI answer engines may read the site

    Your robots.txt lets the crawlers behind ChatGPT search, Claude and Perplexity read the site and cite it in answers.

  • Text is in the HTML

    Your server sends the page's text in the HTML (832 words), so crawlers that don't run JavaScript still read it.

Other pages

5 to fix67

  • 1 page without a title

    https://publicsurplus.com/sms/browse/cataucs has no <title>, so Google invents the link text in results.

  • 12 pages share a title

    https://publicsurplus.com/sms/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,al/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,ak/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,as/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,az/browse/home and https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,ar/browse/home and 6 others all use the title “Public Surplus: Government Surplus Auctions”. Search engines can't tell which page to show for a search, so each competes with the others.

  • 4 pages without a meta description

    https://publicsurplus.com/sms/browse/allcat, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/about/home.ftlh, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/browse/cataucs and https://publicsurplus.com/sms/about/contactus.ftlh have no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

  • 11 pages share a meta description

    https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,al/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,ak/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,as/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,az/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,ar/browse/home and https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,ca/browse/home and 5 others use the same meta description. A description written for each page earns more clicks.

  • 15 pages without an H1

    https://publicsurplus.com/sms/browse/allcat, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/about/home.ftlh, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/browse/cataucs, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/about/contactus.ftlh, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,al/browse/home and https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,ak/browse/home and 9 others have no <h1> headline, so visitors and search engines get no clear main topic.

  • 1 page with very little text

    https://publicsurplus.com/sms/about/contactus.ftlh has under 150 words in the HTML. Thin pages rarely rank; if the text loads with JavaScript, crawlers that don't run it see even less.

  • 4 pages slow to respond

    https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,as/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,az/browse/home, https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,de/browse/home and https://publicsurplus.com/sms/all,fl/browse/home took over 3 s to send their HTML from our server.

  • 15 internal pages checked

    We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 73 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

3 checks passed

  • Linked pages load

    All 15 pages we checked loaded without an error.

  • Canonical URLs point to themselves

    No page we checked hands its ranking to a different URL.

  • No linked page is hidden from search

    None of the pages we checked carries a noindex tag.

Best practices

2 to fixGoogle 5891

  • 32 small tap targets

    32 of 41 tappable elements near the top of the page are smaller than 24 px, hard to hit with a thumb.

  • Deprecated browser APIs

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

  • 10 low-resolution images

    10 images are served at too low a resolution for sharp phone screens.

2 checks passed

  • No console errors

    No JavaScript errors were logged while the page loaded on a phone.

  • Mobile viewport set

    The page declares a mobile viewport.

Content and conversion

2 to fix79

  • No call to action on the first screen

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

  • Thin social proof

    Social proof on the homepage: 1 customer or partner logo. Pairing it with named testimonials or customer logos makes it far more convincing.

  • About 260 words of copy

    The homepage carries about 260 words of visible text.

5 checks passed

  • 2 calls to action

    The homepage has 2 calls to action, for example “Contact Us” and “Register”.

  • 1 short form

    A short form (2 fields at most) is right on the homepage.

  • Analytics in place

    Analytics detected: Google Analytics.

  • Direct contact links

    Visitors can reach you directly: 0 phone links and 1 email link.

  • Risk reducer mentioned

    A guarantee or risk reducer (money-back, free trial, no credit card or similar) is mentioned on the page.

Privacy and tracking

1 to fix

  • 1 tracker load before any consent

    1

    Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Analytics (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.

  • 8 cookies set on arrival

    8

    Opening the homepage sets 8 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

  • No consent tool detected

    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.

  • 3 other companies contacted

    Loading the homepage contacts 3 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.

Security, domain, email and software versions

The security, domain and email checks, software and plugin versions, and any app with a known security problem are visible only to people at publicsurplus.com, because details like these could help someone attack a site. Every review keeps them private, whatever they found.

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What your $25 Growth Playbook adds

This review found 25 issues on publicsurplus.com, including 9 speed issues, 5 SEO issues and 2 conversion gaps. That is the website alone. The full Growth Playbook pairs these findings with what your customers say in public reviews and communities and what your closest competitors do better, then turns everything into at least 20 prioritised ideas, each with the evidence behind it, a step-by-step playbook, a metric and an owner.

  • 28 research agents read your site, reviews, competitors, communities and public filings
  • Customer review mining (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and more) and voice-of-pain analysis in your buyers’ own words
  • Competitor intelligence with battlecards for your closest rivals
  • Ideal customer profile, buyer segments and buying-stage funnel
  • Ranked channels, outreach sequences and content angles
  • Live Reddit threads where buyers ask for what you sell, with draft replies
  • Earned media and PR openings
  • At least 20 ideas with evidence, a step-by-step playbook, metric, owner, effort and impact, grouped into this week, this quarter, big bets and wildcards, plus a 30/60/90-day roadmap
  • PDF, Markdown, CSV, Notion and Linear exports, and a shareable page your team can track progress on
  • Refresh the playbook later to see what changed

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