www.mercurynews.com speed test — 20 Oct 2026
Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 14:28 UTC. Grade C (73/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.
Where the first byte went
- DNS lookup 57 ms 30%
- TCP connect 30 ms 16%
- Server wait 101 ms 54%
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 server answered in 188 ms, which is fast: almost all of the wait is the page itself, not the host.
- The page transfers 15.09 MB over 26 request(s). Images files are 98% of it, so resize and recompress the largest images before anything else.
- The HTML itself arrives br-compressed.
- It runs over HTTP/3, so the assets share a connection instead of opening one each.
Fix first: Image delivery and format - 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.
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, 15.09 MB across all of them.
Top issues
Image delivery and format
high impact3 image(s) over 200 KB and 3 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.
Render-blocking resources
high impact27 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (17 script(s), 10 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.
Total page weight
high impactThe page transfers 15.09 MB across 26 request(s), with the document itself at 50.4 KB.
Fix: Work through the heaviest assets first: images, then fonts, then third-party scripts.
Avoid extra redirects
medium impact1 redirect hop(s) before the page load started, each one a full round trip before the first byte.
Fix: Link to the canonical URL (and make sure http, the apex domain and www all point at it) so no visitor pays a redirect first.
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://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/AP26292629504578.jpg?w=525 | images | 200 | 1.83 s | 43.5 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/BNG-L-49ERS-1020-21.jpg?w=296 | images | 200 | 1.58 s | 26.5 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/EBT-L-THAOJURY-1014-10.jpg?w=283 | images | 200 | 1.37 s | 22.3 KB |
| https://i.imgur.com/9FhbKaR.jpg 3rd party | images | 200 | 1.12 s | 38.0 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ACS.png | images | 200 | 1.08 s | 18.9 KB |
| https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js?ver=3.5.1 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 1.07 s | 30.3 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/BANG.png | images | 200 | 1.07 s | 19.4 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/mn-logo.svg | images | 200 | 1.06 s | 5.0 KB |
| https://cmp.osano.com/16A1AnRt2Fn8i1unj/1edc45d9-1a78-48b2-9035-037b31df744a/osano.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 1.06 s | 68.1 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/MNG.png | images | 200 | 1.06 s | 22.8 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Endorsements2026_730x100.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 24.1 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/VotersGuide2026_730x100.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 47.9 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/client-mu-plugins/src/Auth0/assets/dist/auth0-session-storage.min.js?ver=1.0.4 | javascript | 200 | 1.05 s | 183 B |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/EBT-L-THAOJURY-1014-10.jpg | images | 200 | 1.04 s | 1.89 MB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/BNG-L-49ERS-1020-21.jpg | images | 200 | 1.04 s | 3.92 MB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/AP26292629504578.jpg | images | 200 | 1.04 s | 8.69 MB |
| https://accounts.google.com/gsi/client?ver=6.9.10 3rd party | html | 403 | 1.04 s | 0 B |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/plugins/mng-digisubs/static/mng-digisubs.shared.bundle.js?ver=1792449402 | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 93.3 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/plugins/mng-digisubs/static/mng-digisubs.uiHandler.bundle.js?ver=1792449402 | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 31.6 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/plugins/mng-digisubs/static/mng-digisubs.core.bundle.js?ver=1792449402 | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 22.7 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/_static/??/wp-content/plugins/dfm-trust-indicators/dist/js/main.min.js,/wp-content/plugins/loader-wp/static/engageLibrary.min.js?m=1792442447j | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 17.3 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/plugins/mng-digisubs/static/mng-digisubs.entitlements.bundle.js?ver=1792449402 | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 14.5 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/plugins/loader-wp/static/loader.min.js?ver=1.6.4 | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 10.6 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/client-mu-plugins/src/SSO/assets/js/sso-tools.min.js?m=1790630077g | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 1.5 KB |
| https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/plugins/site-plugins/site-bang/dist/js/main.min.js?m=1792084943g | javascript | 200 | 1.04 s | 8 B |
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