redstate.com website review

209 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (1.7 MB).

9 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 3.8 s.

About 662 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 2.5 s faster on a phone.

Your mobile performance score is 34 (desktop: 62). Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

A phone's processor spends 8.4 s on main-thread work while loading, 4.2 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Google/Doubleclick Ads, osano.com and Google Tag Manager and others), adding 1.6 MB and 1.7 s of main-thread time.

17 images could be 458 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 400 ms faster on a phone.

Google/Doubleclick Ads costs a phone 533 ms of main-thread work and 858 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 325 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 271 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

Polyfills for old browsers add 111 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

Web fonts hide text while they load. Setting font-display: swap shows text immediately (about 150 ms).

5 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

About 11 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page.

Desktop scores 62 but mobile only 34. A gap that wide usually means heavy scripts and images that hit phones hardest.

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 10.7 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Your largest element takes 24.3 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image “This Video of El-Sayed From 2018 Could Do Some Serious Dama…”.

The page becomes fully interactive after 45.4 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 10.7 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 956 ms in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

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

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-03, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 88 ms to 99 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-03, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.0 s to 1.0 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 5.8 MB in 1,032 requests on a phone: scripts 2.4 MB (95), images 2.2 MB (314) and other files 532 KiB (505). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

37 images further down the page (1.5 MB) download before anyone scrolls to them. Adding loading="lazy" lets the first screen load first.

31 images (1.4 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 1b12d457-41e4-493b-bc28-28696f10555f-1200x742.jpg at 1,200 px wide, shown at 364 px. Resized copies would save about 9 KiB.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 1.65 g of CO₂e: 197.7 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

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

1 element hidden from screen readers can still receive keyboard focus.

Alternative text of images should not be repeated as text: 4 elements on the page fail this check, rated minor by axe-core.

Headings skip levels (h2 → h4), which makes the page harder to scan with a screen reader.

Elements with visible text labels do not have matching accessible names. (1 element).

The homepage links to 295 pages on redstate.com and 42 external pages.

https://redstate.com/newsletters and https://redstate.com/contact-us all use the title “RedState – Top Conservative News and Insights”. Search engines can't tell which page to show for a search, so each competes with the others.

https://redstate.com/vip and https://redstate.com/subscribe have no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

https://redstate.com/newsletters, https://redstate.com/games, https://redstate.com/contact-us, https://redstate.com/about and https://redstate.com/jobs use the same meta description. A description written for each page earns more clicks.

https://redstate.com/watch and https://redstate.com/subscribe have no <h1> headline, so visitors and search engines get no clear main topic.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 103 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

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

30 of 46 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 (“The Topics API is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.”).

2 errors were 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”).

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

Social proof on the homepage: 20 trust badges. 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 1,715 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Amazon Ads, Criteo, Google Ads, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager and 1 more (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 19 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 64 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.