author.today speed test — 20 Oct 2026

The first byte arrived after 655 ms. Of that, 566 ms was the server thinking and 89 ms was connection setup. A first byte under 400 ms is what a visitor feels as instant.

Fix: Cut server think time: page cache, query indexes, fewer synchronous calls to third parties inside the request. Connection setup is distance, so a nearer region or a CDN edge helps instead.

5 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (0 script(s), 5 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.

The certificate for author.today has 9 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.

The page transfers 1.33 MB across 26 request(s), with the document itself at 48.0 KB.

Fix: Work through the heaviest assets first: images, then fonts, then third-party scripts.

8 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.