www.sciencenews.org speed test — 20 Oct 2026

Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 16:04 UTC. Grade C (71/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.

https://www.sciencenews.org/

20 October 2026 at 16:04 UTC · Free test · report pt_802cfb8871e7

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Grade

71/100

Performance70/100

Structure73/100

10 audit(s) passed, 6 need work

First byte (TTFB)449 msmeasured from this server

Fully loaded1.76 sfirst byte + slowest asset

Requests26document + assets

Page weight3.59 MBcompressed transfer

HTML document167.5 KBbr

ProtocolHTTP/3cloudflare

Where the first byte went

DNS lookup 100 ms 22%
TCP connect 56 ms 12%
Server wait 293 ms 65%

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

First bytefaster than 50% of 4,999 pages tested here449 ms against a median of 448 ms

Page weightheavier than 90% of 4,999 pages tested here3.59 MB against a median of 650.3 KB

Fully loadedfaster than 54% of 4,999 pages tested here1.76 s against a median of 1.84 s

Requestssends more requests than 100% of 4,999 pages tested here26 against a median of 26

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 449 ms. That is workable, and the cheapest win left is caching or a warmer connection.
The page transfers 3.59 MB over 26 request(s). Images files are 95% 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.
The largest element painted at 956 ms, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
Layout stayed still (CLS 0.003), so nothing jumps under the reader's cursor.
The main thread was blocked for 250 ms, so taps and scrolling wait while scripts run.

Fix first: Server response time (TTFB) - 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.

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.

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.

Largest contentful paint956 msgood is under 2.5 s

Cumulative layout shift0.003under 0.1 is stable

Total blocking time250 mslong tasks during load

First contentful paint956 msfirst content on screen

Browser page weight2.94 MB196 request(s), scripts included

Failed requests6blocked or unreachable

Largest contentful paint956 ms

Goodgood under 2.5 s, poor over 4 s

Cumulative layout shift0.003

Goodgood under 0.1, poor over 0.25

Total blocking time250 ms

Needs improvementgood under 200 ms, poor over 600 ms

Page weight by type

What the page is made of

Images 24 requests

3.43 MB 95%

Transfer size, compressed as sent. 26 request(s) in total, 3.59 MB across all of them.

Top issues

Server response time (TTFB)

high impact

The first byte arrived after 449 ms. Of that, 293 ms was the server thinking and 156 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.

Image delivery and format

high impact

6 image(s) over 200 KB and 11 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.

Total page weight

high impact

The page transfers 3.59 MB across 26 request(s), with the document itself at 167.5 KB.

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

HTML document size

medium impact

The document transfers 167.5 KB. A bloated document delays every other request, because nothing else can start until it is parsed.

Fix: Paginate long listings, move repeated markup into a template, and stop inlining large data URIs into the HTML.

Avoid extra redirects

medium impact

1 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.