www.gmu.edu speed test — 20 Oct 2026
Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 14:07 UTC. Grade C (75/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.
Where the first byte went
- DNS lookup 54 ms 22%
- TCP connect 41 ms 16%
- Server wait 156 ms 62%
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 251 ms. That is workable, and the cheapest win left is caching or a warmer connection.
- The page transfers 2.52 MB over 26 request(s). Javascript files are 82% of it, so defer what is not needed for the first screen, and drop tags nobody uses.
- The HTML itself arrives gzip-compressed.
- It runs over HTTP/3, so the assets share a connection instead of opening one each.
- The largest element painted at 1.93 s, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
- Layout stayed still (CLS 0.014), so nothing jumps under the reader's cursor.
- The main thread was blocked for 373 ms, so taps and scrolling wait while scripts run.
Fix first: Compress text responses - Turn on brotli (preferred) or gzip for text/css, javascript and text/html in the web server. This is the cheapest win available on almost any site.
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.
Screenshot
What the page looks like
Loaded in headless Chromium on this server. Click an image to open it full size.
Browser render
The same URL loaded in a real browser, so these are the readings curl cannot produce. The grade above is still built from the server measurements.
Page weight by type
What the page is made of
Transfer size, compressed as sent. 26 request(s) in total, 2.52 MB across all of them.
Top issues
Compress text responses
high impact2 text response(s) of 10 KB or more are sent uncompressed, and the document itself is not compressed. That is 118.0 KB of compressible text.
Fix: Turn on brotli (preferred) or gzip for text/css, javascript and text/html in the web server. This is the cheapest win available on almost any site.
Render-blocking resources
high impact11 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (5 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.
Total page weight
high impactThe page transfers 2.52 MB across 26 request(s), with the document itself at 21.9 KB.
Fix: Work through the heaviest assets first: images, then fonts, then third-party scripts.
TLS certificate validity
high impactThe certificate for www.gmu.edu has 13 day(s) left.
Fix: Renew automatically (certbot with a working renewal timer) and alert on the certificate, not on the renew command, so a silent failure is caught weeks before a browser warning.
JavaScript weight
medium impact2 JavaScript file(s) over 200 KB: all.min.js (1.84 MB), js__dldP-eiHuwELOVnyp6V7v3cXkV2M_4IDh7qPEFyo9U.js (207.5 KB)
Fix: Split routes, remove unused dependencies, and prefer a two-file build (one pinned library, one application bundle) over many small ones.
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.gmu.edu/themes/custom/sf_mason_2024/images/mason-logo.png | images | 200 | 2.22 s | 4.9 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/feature_image_small/public/2026-10/ferrer_new_american_voices_award_finalists_2026.jpg?itok=0hZRsrIs | images | 200 | 1.18 s | 21.0 KB |
| https://cookie-cdn.cookiepro.com/consent/bf886dba-bf8f-4844-8acb-cfdc11c842e6/OtAutoBlock.js 3rd party | other | 405 | 1.18 s | 18 B |
| https://www.youtube.com/embed/k84z9YJKLJ4?autoplay=0&start=0&rel=0&mute=0 3rd party | html | 200 | 1.14 s | 58.8 KB |
| https://president.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/2025-12/25-328_pr_web.png 3rd party | images | 200 | 1.13 s | 72.4 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/feature_image_small/public/2026-10/mccracken_feat_0.jpg?itok=sOTahmgB | images | 200 | 1.12 s | 59.2 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/2026-09/Mason%20Spirit%20Fall%202026%20Cover.jpg?itok=Q89vZNEr | images | 200 | 1.10 s | 50.1 KB |
| https://www.youtube.com/embed/suJ2D-ZogzE?autoplay=0&start=0&rel=0&mute=0 3rd party | html | 200 | 1.07 s | 59.2 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/1.png | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 532 B |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/small_content_image/public/2026-02/gci-extensionmark1.png?itok=-QpjnHB3 | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 11.8 KB |
| https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-PX3VVD5 3rd party | html | 200 | 1.04 s | 428 B |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/js/js_tS6s3cziApgKtoeYYUQBXSFEp2_gibU6eiCFRVRF4_k.js?scope=footer&delta=4&language=en&theme=sf_mason_2024&include=eJxtztEOgjAMBdAfmtQQ_2epo5Rpt5J2oP69RF6U-HLTe_py6dkk1zsMtswoHe01jFobPsi1EHzdna8cuCwxqRFMZBpd8kD2QRL0lhM4oaVpySdPlufm-7OQMdX0iihkzeEfBlZlodiQgbc49g5v-PzFEnyMBV1r7M_9BTBt24as9eDJPa5ofmAWvaK8Ad-4ZH8 | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 630 B |
| https://unpkg.com/popper.js@1 3rd party | other | 302 | 1.03 s | 0 B |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/feature_image_medium/public/2026-10/mccracken_feat_0.jpg?itok=2DDPoRKx | images | 200 | 1.03 s | 43.7 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/themes/custom/sf_mason_2024/logo.png | images | 200 | 1.03 s | 37.4 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/feature_image_large/public/2026-06/Mason%20Now%20logo%20cropped.jpg?itok=2lmgEgt3 | images | 200 | 1.03 s | 18.5 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/feature_image_medium/public/2026-10/ferrer_new_american_voices_award_finalists_2026.jpg?itok=UDXELDIu | images | 200 | 1.03 s | 14.2 KB |
| https://cookie-cdn.cookiepro.com/scripttemplates/otSDKStub.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 13.6 KB |
| https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/css-vars-ponyfill.min.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 7.1 KB |
| https://unpkg.com/tippy.js@4 3rd party | other | 302 | 1.03 s | 0 B |
| https://www.gmu.edu/libraries/fontawesome/js/all.min.js?v=6.4.0 | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 1.84 MB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/js/js__dldP-eiHuwELOVnyp6V7v3cXkV2M_4IDh7qPEFyo9U.js?scope=footer&delta=0&language=en&theme=sf_mason_2024&include=eJxtztEOgjAMBdAfmtQQ_2epo5Rpt5J2oP69RF6U-HLTe_py6dkk1zsMtswoHe01jFobPsi1EHzdna8cuCwxqRFMZBpd8kD2QRL0lhM4oaVpySdPlufm-7OQMdX0iihkzeEfBlZlodiQgbc49g5v-PzFEnyMBV1r7M_9BTBt24as9eDJPa5ofmAWvaK8Ad-4ZH8 | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 207.5 KB |
| https://www.gmu.edu/modules/contrib/google_tag/js/gtag.js?tn0e3z | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 535 B |
| https://www.gmu.edu/modules/contrib/google_tag/js/gtm.js?tn0e3z | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 452 B |
| https://www.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/js/js_KrpK9fJHhkA74osahBAlUfxFcOhT6UB3Xgg7xm9FXPc.js?scope=header&delta=0&language=en&theme=sf_mason_2024&include=eJxtztEOgjAMBdAfmtQQ_2epo5Rpt5J2oP69RF6U-HLTe_py6dkk1zsMtswoHe01jFobPsi1EHzdna8cuCwxqRFMZBpd8kD2QRL0lhM4oaVpySdPlufm-7OQMdX0iihkzeEfBlZlodiQgbc49g5v-PzFEnyMBV1r7M_9BTBt24as9eDJPa5ofmAWvaK8Ad-4ZH8 | javascript | 200 | 1.03 s | 418 B |
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