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merriamwebster.com screenshot

Report Summary

  • 24

    Performance

    Renders faster than
    43% of other websites

  • 61

    Accessibility

    Visual factors better than
    that of 27% of websites

  • 75

    Best Practices

    More advanced features
    available than in
    35% of websites

  • 86

    SEO

    Google-friendlier than
    60% of websites

merriamwebster.com

Merriam-Webster: America's Most Trusted Dictionary

Page Load Speed

1.7 sec in total

First Response

34 ms

Resources Loaded

339 ms

Page Rendered

1.3 sec

merriamwebster.com screenshot

About Website

Click here to check amazing Merriam Webster content. Otherwise, check out these important facts you probably never knew about merriamwebster.com

Find definitions for over 300,000 words from the most authoritative English dictionary. Continuously updated with new words and meanings.

Visit merriamwebster.com

Key Findings

We analyzed Merriamwebster.com page load time and found that the first response time was 34 ms and then it took 1.7 sec to load all DOM resources and completely render a web page. This is quite a good result, as only 35% of websites can load faster.

Performance Metrics

merriamwebster.com performance score

24

Measured Metrics

name

value

score

weighting

FCP (First Contentful Paint)

Value2.0 s

85/100

10%

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

Value13.2 s

0/100

25%

SI (Speed Index)

Value15.5 s

0/100

10%

TBT (Total Blocking Time)

Value4,000 ms

1/100

30%

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)

Value0

100/100

15%

TTI (Time to Interactive)

Value36.8 s

0/100

10%

Network Requests Diagram

www.merriam-webster.com

34 ms

bundle.es5.min.js

125 ms

at.js

9 ms

ads.min.js

270 ms

client-v2.js

133 ms

Our browser made a total of 20 requests to load all elements on the main page. We found that 0% of them (0 request) were addressed to the original Merriamwebster.com, 10% (2 requests) were made to Googletagmanager.com and 5% (1 request) were made to Browser.sentry-cdn.com. The less responsive or slowest element that took the longest time to load (270 ms) relates to the external source Ads.adthrive.com.

Page Optimization Overview & Recommendations

Page size can be reduced by 269.8 kB (25%)

Content Size

1.1 MB

After Optimization

789.5 kB

  • HTML
  • Images
  • JavaScript
  • CSS

In fact, the total size of Merriamwebster.com main page is 1.1 MB. This result falls beyond the top 1M of websites and identifies a large and not optimized web page that may take ages to load. 60% of websites need less resources to load. Images take 466.9 kB which makes up the majority of the site volume.

HTML Optimization

-82%

Potential reduce by 214.2 kB

  • Original 261.8 kB
  • After minification 202.7 kB
  • After compression 47.6 kB

HTML content can be minified and compressed by a website’s server. The most efficient way is to compress content using GZIP which reduces data amount travelling through the network between server and browser. This page needs HTML code to be minified as it can gain 59.1 kB, which is 23% of the original size. It is highly recommended that content of this web page should be compressed using GZIP, as it can save up to 214.2 kB or 82% of the original size.

Image Optimization

-12%

Potential reduce by 55.1 kB

  • Original 466.9 kB
  • After minification 411.8 kB

Image size optimization can help to speed up a website loading time. The chart above shows the difference between the size before and after optimization. Obviously, Merriam Webster needs image optimization as it can save up to 55.1 kB or 12% of the original volume. The most popular and efficient tools for JPEG and PNG image optimization are Jpegoptim and PNG Crush.

JavaScript Optimization

-0%

Potential reduce by 456 B

  • Original 275.5 kB
  • After minification 275.5 kB
  • After compression 275.0 kB

It’s better to minify JavaScript in order to improve website performance. The diagram shows the current total size of all JavaScript files against the prospective JavaScript size after its minification and compression. This website has mostly compressed JavaScripts.

CSS Optimization

-0%

Potential reduce by 0 B

  • Original 55.1 kB
  • After minification 55.1 kB
  • After compression 55.1 kB

CSS files minification is very important to reduce a web page rendering time. The faster CSS files can load, the earlier a page can be rendered. Merriamwebster.com has all CSS files already compressed.

Requests Breakdown

Number of requests can be reduced by 8 (42%)

Requests Now

19

After Optimization

11

  • Images
  • JavaScript
  • CSS

The browser has sent 19 CSS, Javascripts, AJAX and image requests in order to completely render the main page of Merriam Webster. We recommend that multiple CSS and JavaScript files should be merged into one by each type, as it can help reduce assets requests from 9 to 1 for JavaScripts and as a result speed up the page load time.

Network Requests Diagram

www.merriam-webster.com

www.merriam-webster.com

34 ms

bundle.es5.min.js

bundle.es5.min.js

125 ms

at.js

at.js

9 ms

ads.min.js

ads.min.js

270 ms

client-v2.js

client-v2.js

133 ms

gtm.js

gtm.js

234 ms

js

js

234 ms

script.manual.js

script.manual.js

218 ms

style-home-redesign.fa8c0a78c760252a6cd0.css

style-home-redesign.fa8c0a78c760252a6cd0.css

24 ms

jwplayer.js

jwplayer.js

122 ms

js-home-redesign.d60d09837c15dae9e098.js

js-home-redesign.d60d09837c15dae9e098.js

126 ms

link-icon.svg

link-icon.svg

34 ms

audio-pron.svg

audio-pron.svg

35 ms

content-section-header-ellipsis-gold.svg

content-section-header-ellipsis-gold.svg

44 ms

see-all-btn-link-chevron-icon.svg

see-all-btn-link-chevron-icon.svg

46 ms

video-player.svg

video-player.svg

44 ms

open-link-icon.svg

open-link-icon.svg

44 ms

timetraveler-logo.svg

timetraveler-logo.svg

129 ms

app_mw_image_2x_updated.png

app_mw_image_2x_updated.png

176 ms

poadcast_word_image_updated1.png

poadcast_word_image_updated1.png

146 ms

Accessibility Review

merriamwebster.com accessibility score

61

Accessibility Issues

ARIA

These are opportunities to improve the usage of ARIA in your application which may enhance the experience for users of assistive technology, like a screen reader.

Impact

Issue

High

[aria-*] attributes do not match their roles

High

[role] values are not valid

High

ARIA IDs are not unique

Names and labels

These are opportunities to improve the semantics of the controls in your application. This may enhance the experience for users of assistive technology, like a screen reader.

Impact

Issue

High

Buttons do not have an accessible name

High

Image elements do not have [alt] attributes

High

Links do not have a discernible name

Contrast

These are opportunities to improve the legibility of your content.

Impact

Issue

High

Background and foreground colors do not have a sufficient contrast ratio.

Tables and lists

These are opportunities to improve the experience of reading tabular or list data using assistive technology, like a screen reader.

Impact

Issue

High

Lists do not contain only <li> elements and script supporting elements (<script> and <template>).

Best Practices

merriamwebster.com best practices score

75

Areas of Improvement

Trust and Safety

Impact

Issue

High

Does not use HTTPS

Low

Ensure CSP is effective against XSS attacks

User Experience

Impact

Issue

High

Displays images with incorrect aspect ratio

General

Impact

Issue

Low

Detected JavaScript libraries

High

Browser errors were logged to the console

High

Missing source maps for large first-party JavaScript

SEO Factors

merriamwebster.com SEO score

86

Search Engine Optimization Advices

Crawling and Indexing

To appear in search results, crawlers need access to your app.

Impact

Issue

High

Links are not crawlable

Content Best Practices

Format your HTML in a way that enables crawlers to better understand your app’s content.

Impact

Issue

High

Image elements do not have [alt] attributes

Mobile Friendly

Make sure your pages are mobile friendly so users don’t have to pinch or zoom in order to read the content pages. [Learn more](https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/).

Impact

Issue

High

Document uses legible font sizes

Language and Encoding

  • Language Detected

    EN

  • Language Claimed

    EN

  • Encoding

    UTF-8

Language claimed in HTML meta tag should match the language actually used on the web page. Otherwise Merriamwebster.com can be misinterpreted by Google and other search engines. Our service has detected that English is used on the page, and it matches the claimed language. Our system also found out that Merriamwebster.com main page’s claimed encoding is utf-8. Use of this encoding format is the best practice as the main page visitors from all over the world won’t have any issues with symbol transcription.

Social Sharing Optimization

merriamwebster.com

Open Graph data is detected on the main page of Merriam Webster. This is the best way to make the web page social media friendly. Here is how it looks like on Facebook: