vernoncollege.edu website review

29 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (4.9 MB).

24 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 3.5 s.

About 393 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 2.3 s faster on a phone.

Your mobile performance score is 49. Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

8 images could be 3.8 MB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 200 ms faster on a phone.

Polyfills for old browsers add 42 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 300 ms faster on a phone.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Hotjar, Facebook and TikTok and others), adding 908 KiB and 440 ms of main-thread time.

About 122 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 150 ms faster on a phone.

3 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 128 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

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.

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.

Your largest element takes 11.7 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the text “TAKE COURSES FOR TRANSFER LEARN MORE”.

The first text or image appears after 4.5 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

The page becomes fully interactive after 11.7 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Real visitors wait 2.6 s for the largest content to appear (75th percentile). Good is under 2.5 s.

Real visitors see the first content after 2.0 s (75th percentile). Good is under 1.8 s.

The layout shifts by 0.248 while loading, so content jumps under the reader's thumb. Good is under 0.1.

Visually, the page fills in at 5.1 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

7 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 80 ms to 90 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 2.0 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 6.1 MB in 78 requests on a phone: images 4.8 MB (15), scripts 922 KiB (20) and fonts 150 KiB (10). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

vc_banner.jpg weighs 997 KiB. On a phone connection a single image that size takes seconds.

1 image is downloaded at several times the size a phone draws it, for example vc_banner.jpg at 1,901 px wide, shown at 390 px. Resized copies would save about 619 KiB.

3 images (1.3 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.

3 images further down the page (1.3 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 1.72 g of CO₂e: 206.2 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

Some list items are not inside a list.

2 links inside paragraphs rely on colour alone to stand out.

1 text element doesn't have enough contrast against the background to read easily, especially outdoors on a phone.

Some lists contain elements other than list items, which screen readers announce wrongly.

5 images have no alt text, which hurts accessibility and image search.

All page content should be contained by landmarks: 24 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.

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

Your title is only 21 characters: “Vernon College - Home”. Between 30 and 65 characters leaves room to say what you do and for whom.

There are 4 <h1> headlines (“Vernon College in Vernon, Texas and Wichita Falls”, “TAKE COURSES FOR TRANSFER” and “START YOUR CAREER”). One clear main headline is easier for people and search engines.

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

4 links use generic text like “click here” or “learn more”, which tells Google nothing about the page behind them.

The homepage links to 88 pages on vernoncollege.edu and 18 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.vernoncollege.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.

Your homepage links to 1 page by a URL that isn't its canonical one, for example https://www.vernoncollege.edu/VC-Calendar, whose canonical is https://www.vernoncollege.edu/vc-calendar. Linking straight to the canonical URL saves crawlers a detour and keeps ranking signals on one address.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 75 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

6 images failed to load on a phone, for example https://www.vernoncollege.edu/Images/NavLogo.png.

14 of 35 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_CERT_DATE_INVALID”.

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

Large scripts ship without source maps.

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

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.

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 305 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, Meta Pixel and TikTok Pixel (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 14 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 23 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.