www.mcgill.ca speed test — 20 Oct 2026
Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 13:30 UTC. Grade C (74/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.
Where the first byte went
- DNS lookup 299 ms 39%
- TCP connect 39 ms 5%
- Server wait 431 ms 56%
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 took 769 ms. Everything else waits for that number, so the server is where to start: caching, a slow query, or an overloaded host.
- The page transfers 1.49 MB over 19 request(s). Images files are 58% of it, so resize and recompress the largest images before anything else.
- 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 644 ms, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
- Layout stayed still (CLS 0.022), so nothing jumps under the reader's cursor.
- The main thread was blocked for 36 ms in total, which is not enough to feel.
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.
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. 19 request(s) in total, 1.49 MB across all of them.
Top issues
Server response time (TTFB)
high impactThe first byte arrived after 769 ms. Of that, 431 ms was the server thinking and 338 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.
Compress text responses
high impact8 text response(s) of 10 KB or more are sent uncompressed, and the document itself is not compressed. That is 602.0 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.
Image delivery and format
high impact3 image(s) over 200 KB and 4 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 impact4 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (0 script(s), 4 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
medium impactThe page transfers 1.49 MB across 19 request(s), with the document itself at 10.2 KB.
Fix: Work through the heaviest assets first: images, then fonts, then third-party scripts.
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.mcgill.ca/root/css/css_Bn4VZCSfwKVWH9WNeCdIiPE3w4Jj12aatoF8FAKh6s4.css | css | 200 | 1.21 s | 356.8 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_G8UCeLS2V3_kmKnBUDyyePWz6JTaxtx9x2_FgJzC_Cs.js | javascript | 200 | 1.19 s | 124.0 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/sites/all/themes/coltrane19/dist/coltrane.js?tn7i27 | javascript | 200 | 1.19 s | 6.3 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_UnUAFCNTGurRKyhNy7N72Mv86IdtFGAwSpI4omffLWM.js | javascript | 200 | 1.18 s | 28.3 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/css/css_mOjEzhnZs70DEg5v8YulEWPgPuML4lqo4FjybA8itz0.css | css | 200 | 1.17 s | 10.4 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_v7jDIMUEcN6BBNPa3HVRFvCSboKsSIXuOKzG8_3BWlc.js | javascript | 200 | 1.16 s | 3.2 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_SvFAI8iewe7Ipse2GW7N9TMIrfgiVPH7c090khnScTY.js | javascript | 200 | 1.16 s | 12.0 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/css/css_xE-rWrJf-fncB6ztZfd2huxqgxu4WO-qwma6Xer30m4.css | css | 200 | 1.15 s | 7.4 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/sites/all/themes/coltrane19/favicon.ico | images | 200 | 1.14 s | 1.1 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_sKgv6N06ZXl7RRvcUx-suoQVx2G5PYixfnzMdNUDTA4.js | javascript | 200 | 1.12 s | 15.4 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_NLLXow_P0hT3RGJwt-tDxP0HFx4QVqYa_W5YKdBxYuQ.js | javascript | 200 | 1.11 s | 41.4 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_RulCPHj8aUtatsXPqRSFtJIhBjBSAzFXZzADEVD4CHY.js | javascript | 200 | 1.11 s | 3.8 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/branding-region-oct-2026.jpg | images | 200 | 1.10 s | 171.6 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/styles/wms-focal-md__600x600_/public/story-3-pathy-fellows.jpg?itok=D76nbVBz | images | 200 | 1.09 s | 218.7 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/styles/wms-focal-md__600x600_/public/story-1-ldt.jpg?itok=4U_izmRh | images | 200 | 1.08 s | 210.7 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/styles/wms-focal-md__600x600_/public/story-2-scotland-masters-student.jpg?itok=-kDJv-_R | images | 200 | 1.08 s | 287.2 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/js/js_N23fS6ooC-uvOJ2j7mtuBbVQeGAvoXnACb9oAiqrOPE.js | javascript | 200 | 1.07 s | 8.2 KB |
| https://www.mcgill.ca/root/css/css_looQZWPtU0KMpC8YUe3IHSZC3kjAKRYs_9c6_Oc8Das.css | css | 200 | 1.05 s | 13.7 KB |
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