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read.gov screenshot

Report Summary

  • 43

    Performance

    Renders faster than
    62% of other websites

  • 86

    Accessibility

    Visual factors better than
    that of 62% of websites

  • 58

    Best Practices

    More advanced features
    available than in
    19% of websites

  • 50

    SEO

    Google-friendlier than
    18% of websites

read.gov

Read.gov | The Library of Congress

Page Load Speed

918 ms in total

First Response

139 ms

Resources Loaded

591 ms

Page Rendered

188 ms

read.gov screenshot

About Website

Click here to check amazing Read content for United States. Otherwise, check out these important facts you probably never knew about read.gov

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress invites people of all ages to discover the fascinating people, places and events that await you whenever you read. Come take a tour, visit our exhibi...

Visit read.gov

Key Findings

We analyzed Read.gov page load time and found that the first response time was 139 ms and then it took 779 ms to load all DOM resources and completely render a web page. This is quite a good result, as only 15% of websites can load faster.

Performance Metrics

read.gov performance score

43

Measured Metrics

name

value

score

weighting

FCP (First Contentful Paint)

Value3.1 s

46/100

10%

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

Value7.3 s

4/100

25%

SI (Speed Index)

Value3.8 s

84/100

10%

TBT (Total Blocking Time)

Value1,080 ms

24/100

30%

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)

Value0.006

100/100

15%

TTI (Time to Interactive)

Value5.4 s

72/100

10%

Network Requests Diagram

read.gov

139 ms

styles.css

21 ms

library-of-congress-new.js

28 ms

bootstrap.js

26 ms

modernizr-1.5.min.js

29 ms

Our browser made a total of 64 requests to load all elements on the main page. We found that 41% of them (26 requests) were addressed to the original Read.gov, 47% (30 requests) were made to Cdn.loc.gov and 9% (6 requests) were made to Loc.gov. The less responsive or slowest element that took the longest time to load (139 ms) belongs to the original domain Read.gov.

Page Optimization Overview & Recommendations

Page size can be reduced by 479.9 kB (37%)

Content Size

1.3 MB

After Optimization

804.3 kB

  • HTML
  • Images
  • JavaScript
  • CSS

In fact, the total size of Read.gov main page is 1.3 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 624.7 kB which makes up the majority of the site volume.

HTML Optimization

-72%

Potential reduce by 14.3 kB

  • Original 19.7 kB
  • After minification 17.0 kB
  • After compression 5.4 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 2.7 kB, which is 14% 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 14.3 kB or 72% of the original size.

Image Optimization

-1%

Potential reduce by 7.4 kB

  • Original 624.7 kB
  • After minification 617.3 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. Read images are well optimized though.

JavaScript Optimization

-71%

Potential reduce by 402.7 kB

  • Original 566.1 kB
  • After minification 498.7 kB
  • After compression 163.4 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. It is highly recommended that all JavaScript files should be compressed and minified as it can save up to 402.7 kB or 71% of the original size.

CSS Optimization

-75%

Potential reduce by 55.5 kB

  • Original 73.7 kB
  • After minification 60.7 kB
  • After compression 18.2 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. Read.gov needs all CSS files to be minified and compressed as it can save up to 55.5 kB or 75% of the original size.

Requests Breakdown

Number of requests can be reduced by 42 (71%)

Requests Now

59

After Optimization

17

  • AJAX
  • Images
  • JavaScript
  • CSS

The browser has sent 59 CSS, Javascripts, AJAX and image requests in order to completely render the main page of Read. We recommend that multiple CSS and JavaScript files should be merged into one by each type, as it can help reduce assets requests from 16 to 1 for JavaScripts and from 13 to 1 for CSS and as a result speed up the page load time.

Network Requests Diagram

read.gov

read.gov

139 ms

styles.css

styles.css

21 ms

library-of-congress-new.js

library-of-congress-new.js

28 ms

bootstrap.js

bootstrap.js

26 ms

modernizr-1.5.min.js

modernizr-1.5.min.js

29 ms

nivo-slider.css

nivo-slider.css

28 ms

default.css

default.css

25 ms

jquery-1.7.1.min.js

jquery-1.7.1.min.js

28 ms

jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js

jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js

10 ms

jquery.read.slider.js

jquery.read.slider.js

27 ms

read-slider.js

read-slider.js

23 ms

bootstrap-1.1.0.min.js

bootstrap-1.1.0.min.js

25 ms

s_code.js

s_code.js

18 ms

loc_reset_v2.css

loc_reset_v2.css

46 ms

lochead.css

lochead.css

11 ms

locfoot.css

locfoot.css

12 ms

loc_standard_v2_w.css

loc_standard_v2_w.css

49 ms

read.css

read.css

21 ms

lightbox.css

lightbox.css

23 ms

img_lochead.png

img_lochead.png

45 ms

readGov.gif

readGov.gif

43 ms

leftnav-wide.jpg

leftnav-wide.jpg

17 ms

loading.gif

loading.gif

13 ms

banner_readers.jpg

banner_readers.jpg

40 ms

banner_exquisite.jpg

banner_exquisite.jpg

39 ms

banner-aesop.jpg

banner-aesop.jpg

41 ms

banner-rocket.jpg

banner-rocket.jpg

33 ms

thumb-gene-yang.jpg

thumb-gene-yang.jpg

32 ms

festival.jpg

festival.jpg

33 ms

mm_bg_play.gif

mm_bg_play.gif

58 ms

ECVideo-wide.jpg

ECVideo-wide.jpg

46 ms

seeMoreAuthors.gif

seeMoreAuthors.gif

41 ms

logo-loc.png

logo-loc.png

8 ms

img_locfoot.png

img_locfoot.png

8 ms

facebook.gif

facebook.gif

9 ms

twitter.gif

twitter.gif

9 ms

youtube.gif

youtube.gif

9 ms

flickr.gif

flickr.gif

10 ms

i_arrow_o.gif

i_arrow_o.gif

13 ms

i_arrow.gif

i_arrow.gif

14 ms

loc_sprite_ss.png

loc_sprite_ss.png

19 ms

i_video2.gif

i_video2.gif

18 ms

LAB-2.0.3.min.js

LAB-2.0.3.min.js

10 ms

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1 ms

locui.css

locui.css

15 ms

share-1.9.15.min.css

share-1.9.15.min.css

16 ms

loc.suggest-1.1.0.min.js

loc.suggest-1.1.0.min.js

13 ms

jquery-ui-1.10.2.custom.min.js

jquery-ui-1.10.2.custom.min.js

28 ms

jquery.livequery-1.1.1.js

jquery.livequery-1.1.1.js

17 ms

jquery.claypool-1.2.8-lite.min.js

jquery.claypool-1.2.8-lite.min.js

16 ms

jquery.utils-1.0.js

jquery.utils-1.0.js

16 ms

share-1.9.15.js

share-1.9.15.js

14 ms

jquery-ui-1.10.2.custom.css

jquery-ui-1.10.2.custom.css

25 ms

locui-essential.css

locui-essential.css

27 ms

locui-enhanced.css

locui-enhanced.css

28 ms

s72588131052907

s72588131052907

39 ms

print.gif

print.gif

5 ms

rss.gif

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7 ms

share.gif

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7 ms

feedback.png

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6 ms

trans.gif

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15 ms

read.gov

read.gov

91 ms

arrows.png

arrows.png

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bullet.png

bullet.png

10 ms

Accessibility Review

read.gov accessibility score

86

Accessibility Issues

Navigation

These are opportunities to improve keyboard navigation in your application.

Impact

Issue

High

[accesskey] values are not unique

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.

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

Image elements do not have [alt] attributes

High

Links do not have a discernible name

Best Practices

read.gov best practices score

58

Areas of Improvement

Trust and Safety

Impact

Issue

High

Does not use HTTPS

High

Includes front-end JavaScript libraries with known security vulnerabilities

Low

Ensure CSP is effective against XSS attacks

User Experience

Impact

Issue

High

Serves images with low resolution

General

Impact

Issue

Low

Detected JavaScript libraries

High

Browser errors were logged to the console

SEO Factors

read.gov SEO score

50

Search Engine Optimization Advices

Content Best Practices

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

Impact

Issue

High

Links do not have descriptive text

High

Image elements do not have [alt] attributes

Crawling and Indexing

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

Impact

Issue

High

Links are not crawlable

Language and Encoding

  • Language Detected

    EN

  • Language Claimed

    EN

  • Encoding

    N/A

Language claimed in HTML meta tag should match the language actually used on the web page. Otherwise Read.gov 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 Read.gov main page’s claimed encoding is . Changing it to UTF-8 can be a good choice, as this format is commonly used for encoding all over the web and thus their visitors won’t have any troubles with symbol transcription or reading.

Social Sharing Optimization

read.gov

Open Graph description is not detected on the main page of Read. Lack of Open Graph description can be counter-productive for their social media presence, as such a description allows converting a website homepage (or other pages) into good-looking, rich and well-structured posts, when it is being shared on Facebook and other social media. For example, adding the following code snippet into HTML <head> tag will help to represent this web page correctly in social networks: