By This is the first in a series of posts that will examine the data outputs from tools that we rely on for performance optimization on the web. The goal is to provide examples of scores for websites more generally considered to be ‘better’ by CEOs, CMOs, and business owners.
Speed is of particular importance right now for internet users and has been a focus for several years by SEOs and developers in an effort to make websites work better on mobile devices and improve conversions and sales. In this post I’m examining how some of the top websites in the USA score on the popular tool GTmetrix.
All websites are tested using the final resolved URL for their home page with these settings:
- Location: Dallas, TX
- Browser: Chrome (desktop)
- Connection: Broadband Fast
- Adblock: Off
- Onload: Off
- Video: Off
PageSpeed Score: A – 96%
YSlow Score: A – 96%
Fully Loaded Time: 3.6 seconds
Total Page Size: 1.14mb
Requests: 74
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 356ms
Backend Duration: 1ms
Time to First Byte: 405ms
First Paint: 0.7 seconds
Contentful Paint: 0.7 seconds
DOM Initialized: 0.8 seconds
DOM Loaded: 0.8 seconds
On-Load: 2 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
PageSpeed Score: B – 84%
YSlow Score: B – 86%
Fully Loaded Time: 7.4 seconds
Total Page Size: 1.14kb
Requests: 20
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 356ms
Backend Duration: 278ms
Time to First Byte: 0.6s
First Paint: 2.3 seconds
Contentful Paint: 2.3 seconds
DOM Initialized: 2.3 seconds
DOM Loaded: 2.3 seconds
On-Load: 6.7 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
Amazon
PageSpeed Score: E – 55%
YSlow Score: D – 67%
Fully Loaded Time: 15.2 seconds
Total Page Size: 4.17mb
Requests: 373
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 154ms
Backend Duration: 118ms
Time to First Byte: 272ms
First Paint: 1.3 seconds
Contentful Paint: 1.3 seconds
DOM Initialized: 4.9 seconds
DOM Loaded: 4.9 seconds
On-Load: 7.6 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
YouTube
PageSpeed Score: E – 50%
YSlow Score: B – 81%
Fully Loaded Time: 9.8 seconds
Total Page Size: 2.67mb
Requests: 71
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 141ms
Backend Duration: 109ms
Time to First Byte: 250ms
First Paint: 1.0 seconds
Contentful Paint: 1.0 seconds
DOM Initialized: 6.2 seconds
DOM Loaded: 6.2 seconds
On-Load: 7.7 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
PornHub
PageSpeed Score: B – 88%
YSlow Score: D – 65%
Fully Loaded Time: 2.9 seconds
Total Page Size: 2.45mb
Requests: 80
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 155ms
Backend Duration: 334ms
Time to First Byte: 489ms
First Paint: 1.0 seconds
Contentful Paint: 1.1 seconds
DOM Initialized: 1.4 seconds
DOM Loaded: 1.4 seconds
On-Load: 2.4 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
PageSpeed Score: F – 34%
YSlow Score: C – 72%
Fully Loaded Time: 25.2 seconds
Total Page Size: 17.4mb
Requests: 388
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 116ms
Backend Duration: 1.4 seconds
Time to First Byte: 1.5 seconds
First Paint: 1.8 seconds
Contentful Paint: 1.8 seconds
DOM Initialized: 2.9 seconds
DOM Loaded: 2.9 seconds
On-Load: 16.2 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
PageSpeed Score: A – 97%
YSlow Score: B – 87%
Fully Loaded Time: 4.6 seconds
Total Page Size: 1.00mb
Requests: 33
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 314ms
Backend Duration: 262ms
Time to First Byte: 0.6 seconds
First Paint: 1.0 seconds
Contentful Paint: 1.0 seconds
DOM Initialized: 1.4 seconds
DOM Loaded: 1.4 seconds
On-Load: 3.4 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
PageSpeed Score: A – 90%
YSlow Score: A – 94%
Fully Loaded Time: 8.3 seconds
Total Page Size: 1.08mb
Requests: 51
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 163ms
Backend Duration: 99ms
Time to First Byte: 262ms
First Paint: 451ms
Contentful Paint: 451ms
DOM Initialized: 1.3 seconds
DOM Loaded: 1.3 seconds
On-Load: 4.4 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
Yahoo!
PageSpeed Score: F – 49%
YSlow Score: E – 51%
Fully Loaded Time: 11.4 seconds
Total Page Size: 1.42mb
Requests: 330
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 194ms
Backend Duration: 109ms
Time to First Byte: 303ms
First Paint: 1.0 seconds
Contentful Paint: 1.0 seconds
DOM Initialized: 2.8 seconds
DOM Loaded: 3.1 seconds
On-Load: 8.7 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
Wikipedia
PageSpeed Score: A – 98%
YSlow Score: B – 88%
Fully Loaded Time: 1.2 seconds
Total Page Size: 62.0kb
Requests: 7
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 133ms
Backend Duration: 77ms
Time to First Byte: 210ms
First Paint: 0.9 seconds
Contentful Paint: 0.9 seconds
DOM Initialized: 1.0 seconds
DOM Loaded: 1.0 seconds
On-Load: 1.1 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
eBay
PageSpeed Score: C – 71%
YSlow Score: C – 72%
Fully Loaded Time: 4.9 seconds
Total Page Size: 1.62mb
Requests: 139
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 188ms
Backend Duration: 129ms
Time to First Byte: 0.7 seconds
First Paint: 0.7 seconds
Contentful Paint: 0.9 seconds
DOM Initialized: 1.3 seconds
DOM Loaded: 1.3 seconds
On-Load: 1.4 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
Walmart.com
PageSpeed Score: E – 52%
YSlow Score: D – 64%
Fully Loaded Time: 8.5 seconds
Total Page Size: 2.15mb
Requests: 202
Timings
Redirect Duration: 0ms
Connect Duration: 182ms
Backend Duration: 302ms
Time to First Byte: 484ms
First Paint: 1.5 seconds
Contentful Paint: 1.5 seconds
DOM Initialized: 2.9 seconds
DOM Loaded: 3.0 seconds
On-Load: 6.9 seconds
date tested: 05/28/2020
Obviously you can always run your own reports as the above data will change over time. If you’re using this data for comparisons make sure to compare yourselves to a homepage more similar to your own. As you can see many of these top websites have low grades or slow load times according to this particular tool. While this tool is very helpful in diagnosing problems and creating fixes to improve page load speed and user experience, the data outputs from the tools and the scores are only guides to help you in your quest and specific scores or benchmarks should not be considered essential for SEO, tech performance, or UX.
If you think there is a homepage’s score we should add to this, let me know in the comments.