variety.com speed test — 20 Oct 2026
Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 13:08 UTC. Grade A (91/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.
Where the first byte went
- DNS lookup 57 ms 22%
- TCP connect 55 ms 21%
- Server wait 146 ms 57%
Measured on the connection that fetched the HTML. Every other request on the page waits for the end of this bar before it can start.
How this page compares
Every report published here is in this comparison, so it is a reference population of pages tested from one server - not a benchmark of the whole web.
What these numbers mean
- The first byte arrived in 258 ms. That is workable, and the cheapest win left is caching or a warmer connection.
- The page transfers 498.0 KB over 26 request(s). Javascript files are 54% of it, so defer what is not needed for the first screen, and drop tags nobody uses.
- The HTML itself arrives br-compressed.
- It runs over HTTP/3, so the assets share a connection instead of opening one each.
- 41% of the weight comes from other hosts (analytics, fonts, embeds), which also means their slow day becomes your slow day.
Fix first: Render-blocking resources - Add defer or async to scripts that do not change the first paint, inline the critical CSS, and load the rest with media="print" plus an onload swap.
Read on one shared server, not a visitor's phone: use it to compare pages against each other, not as a promise about every connection. We fix what these tests find.
The headless browser did not capture this page when the test ran, so only the server measurements are shown.
Page weight by type
What the page is made of
Transfer size, compressed as sent. 26 request(s) in total, 498.0 KB across all of them.
Top issues
Render-blocking resources
high impact15 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (9 script(s), 6 stylesheet(s)). The page cannot paint until each one arrives.
Fix: Add defer or async to scripts that do not change the first paint, inline the critical CSS, and load the rest with media="print" plus an onload swap.
Image delivery and format
medium impact0 image(s) over 200 KB and 1 large image(s) still served as JPEG or PNG.
Fix: Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG fallback, size images to the space they occupy, and lazy-load anything below the fold. Images are usually more than half of a slow page.
Cache static assets
medium impact2 asset(s) answer without a Cache-Control max-age, so browsers revalidate them on every visit.
Fix: Version filenames on change and serve them with a long max-age plus immutable. That is what makes a returning visitor fast.
Third-party weight
low impact6 third-party host(s) serve 202.1 KB of this page. Each one is another DNS lookup, TLS handshake and point of failure you do not control.
Fix: Self-host the libraries you can, drop the tags you cannot justify, and preconnect the ones you keep.
Waterfall
Slowest requests
Each bar is one request's own response time, scaled to the slowest. Assets were fetched in parallel, so the bars overlap in real time rather than stacking. first party third party
| Request | Type | Status | Time | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://iabusprivacy.pmc.com/geo-info.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 1.05 s | 108 B |
| https://px.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=1429113&fmt=gif 3rd party | other | 302 | 1.03 s | 0 B |
| https://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel?a.1=&a.2=p-31f3D02tYU8zY 3rd party | other | 405 | 999 ms | 19 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christina-1000.jpg?w=1000&h=667&crop=1 | images | 200 | 991 ms | 131.2 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/themes/pmc-variety-2020/assets/public/lazyload-fallback.gif | images | 200 | 989 ms | 1.1 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-adm-v2/build/atlas-setup-ads.js?ver=5cb2401b890aa1d60c20 | javascript | 200 | 988 ms | 9.5 KB |
| https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=6035310&c4=&cv=3.9&cj=1 3rd party | images | 200 | 985 ms | 43 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load-0.7/assets/build/index.js?ver=36a58e5d155cd1dcf138 | javascript | 200 | 983 ms | 2.8 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-trackonomics/build/index.js?ver=274abea90c74fe3f8539 | javascript | 200 | 983 ms | 379 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-getemails/build/index.js?ver=f2f19a52403be86f9fab | javascript | 200 | 980 ms | 607 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.min.js?ver=3.7.1 | javascript | 200 | 978 ms | 30.7 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-comscore/js/pmc-comscore.min.js?ver=1.2 | javascript | 200 | 977 ms | 233 B |
| https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-S6DEFT20P4&ver=6.9.10 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 971 ms | 182.4 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-first-party-cookie/build/index.js?ver=77ae06ef1bce0319c341 | javascript | 200 | 967 ms | 1.0 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-first-party-data/build/index.js?ver=23049b6feac2237e2c3b | javascript | 200 | 963 ms | 1.2 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-onetrust/assets/build/helpers.js?ver=d51ed1d7adfe670fb8eb | javascript | 200 | 963 ms | 1.1 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-piano/assets/build/wordpress.js?ver=d35dd0b0dcac489798e8 | javascript | 200 | 961 ms | 8.6 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-piano/assets/build/consent.js?ver=c27d8fa59e7d026610b1 | javascript | 200 | 955 ms | 967 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-global-functions/js/pmc-hooks.min.js?ver=6.9.10 | javascript | 200 | 951 ms | 366 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-video-player/build/js/pmc-jwplayer.js?ver=f2efcd4bf2636f21dc3c | javascript | 200 | 949 ms | 7.2 KB |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-global-functions/js/pmc-ajax.min.js?ver=1790352503 | javascript | 200 | 943 ms | 535 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-global-functions/js/pmc-consent.min.js?ver=2024.05.18.001 | javascript | 200 | 942 ms | 397 B |
| https://variety.com/wp-content/plugins/pmc-plugins/pmc-global-functions/js/pmc-utils.min.js?ver=2024.05.18.001 | javascript | 200 | 939 ms | 2.7 KB |
| https://cdn.cookielaw.org/opt-out/otCCPAiab.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 931 ms | 5.8 KB |
| https://cdn.cookielaw.org/scripttemplates/otSDKStub.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 927 ms | 13.6 KB |
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