ursinus.edu website review

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

About 1.3 MB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 6.3 s faster on a phone.

23 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (593 KiB).

Your mobile performance score is 44 (desktop: 31). Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

A phone's processor spends 4.5 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 TikTok and others), adding 3.5 MB and 1.6 s of main-thread time.

10 images could be 558 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 600 ms faster on a phone.

About 152 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 750 ms faster on a phone.

Google Tag Manager costs a phone 698 ms of main-thread work and 1.1 MB 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.

Facebook costs a phone 256 ms of main-thread work and 442 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.

heyhalda.com costs a phone 149 ms of main-thread work and 1.2 MB 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 211 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

Polyfills for old browsers add 45 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

16 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

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.

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.

The first text or image appears after 17.1 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Your largest element takes 41.7 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image “The Sports & Humanities Hub took Ursinus students to the Ph…”.

Visually, the page fills in at 18.7 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

The page becomes fully interactive after 41.7 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

For real visitors the layout shifts by 0.17 (75th percentile). Good is under 0.1.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 444 ms in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

2 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 129 ms to 154 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 1.4 s to 1.6 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 10.7 MB in 480 requests on a phone: images 3.9 MB (44), scripts 3.6 MB (340) and fonts 2.8 MB (20). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

52934_20260821_Convocation2026_145.rev.1787337168.webp is on the first screen but marked loading="lazy", so the browser waits before fetching it and the page looks finished later. Load it eagerly (and give it fetchpriority="high" if it is the main image).

2 images further down the page (159 KiB) 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 3.02 g of CO₂e: 362.6 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

All page content should be contained by landmarks: 11 elements on the page fail this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

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.

ARIA role should be appropriate for the element: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated minor by axe-core.

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

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

2 links have no real href, so search engines can't follow them.

The homepage links to 73 pages on ursinus.edu and 11 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://www.ursinus.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://www.ursinus.edu/academics/graduate-pathways-and-partnerships has no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

Your homepage links to 1 page by a URL that isn't its canonical one, for example https://www.ursinus.edu/apply, whose canonical is https://www.ursinus.edu/admission/applying. Linking straight to the canonical URL saves crawlers a detour and keeps ranking signals on one address.

https://www.ursinus.edu/about, https://www.ursinus.edu/academics, https://www.ursinus.edu/admission, https://www.ursinus.edu/life-at-ursinus and https://www.ursinus.edu/news have no <h1> headline, so visitors and search engines get no clear main topic.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 52 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

1 third-party cookie is set on load; browsers are restricting these, so whatever relies on them breaks.

3 errors were logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “Access to XMLHttpRequest at 'https://cdn.curator.io/published-css/bdf6e176-e94a-4a78-89c2-8bf692f19359.css' from origin…”.

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

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: 4 testimonial or review blocks. 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 521 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar and Meta Pixel and 2 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 29 cookies, 1 of them by other companies (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 43 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.