Documentation

Technical signals

DOM size, blocking scripts, long tasks, resource breakdown and further developer signals.

These values appear in the developer tab of the scan report and provide deeper technical insight than the basic metrics.

DOM size

The number of all DOM elements on the page. From around 1,500 elements onwards, the browser becomes noticeably slower at rendering and at JavaScript operations.

Reference values:

Elements Assessment
Under 800 Good
800–1,500 Okay
Over 1,500 Elevated (Lighthouse reference value) – feeds into the score
Over 3,000 Critical – noticeable score deduction

A typical cause: page builders such as Elementor or Divi often produce a great many nested wrapper elements.

Blocking scripts

The number of external JavaScript files that are included without async or defer. These scripts block the browser while it parses the HTML, until they have been fully loaded and executed.

Reference values:

Count Assessment
0 Optimal
1–3 Acceptable
More than 3 Should be reduced – feeds into the score
More than 8 Critical – noticeable score deduction

The affected script URLs are listed in the report.

font-display

Indicates whether a font-display value is set in the page's @font-face rules. If it is missing, the browser may keep text invisible until the font has fully loaded (FOIT – flash of invisible text).

turbometrics checks whether font-display is present in the analysed stylesheets:

  • Present: the loading behaviour of the fonts is controlled
  • Missing: FOIT risk – at least font-display: swap or optional is recommended

Resource hints

Resource hints in the <head> allow the browser to bring DNS resolutions or connection set-ups forward, before resources are explicitly requested.

turbometrics detects:

  • <link rel="preconnect">: a prioritised early connection to important external hosts
  • <link rel="dns-prefetch">: DNS pre-resolution for external hosts
  • <link rel="prefetch">: preloading resources for the next navigation

If a page includes resources from many external hosts but has no resource hints set, turbometrics reports a notice.

Long tasks

Long tasks are tasks that block the browser main thread for longer than 50 ms. The blocking time is the portion beyond 50 ms – this time feeds directly into TBT.

turbometrics shows for each long task:

  • the start time (measured from page load)
  • the total duration
  • the blocking time (colour-coded by severity)
  • the likely cause (script URL, as far as it can be determined)

The likely cause is determined by overlap with the resource timings and is an approximation, not a proven fact.

Typical causes:

  • heavy JavaScript bundles without code splitting
  • third-party scripts (tracking, chat, consent banners)
  • missing or late script prioritisation
  • synchronously loaded plugins with their own JS logic

Resource breakdown

A breakdown of the resources loaded in the browser by type and weight:

Type Content
JS JavaScript files
CSS Stylesheets
IMG Images
FONT Font files
VIDEO Video files

The breakdown is based on browser runtime data. If JS data is not available (e.g. for cached resources), the static analysis value is used and marked accordingly.

Images without explicit dimensions

Images without width and height attributes can cause layout shifts while loading (CLS), because the browser cannot reserve space for them.

turbometrics shows the number of affected images as well as the total number of images detected on the page.

JavaScript and CSS files

Too many separate JS and CSS files add coordination overhead in the browser and often point to unfavourable asset management.

Reference values for JS files (included directly in the HTML):

Count Assessment
Up to 12 Acceptable
13–20 Elevated – feeds into the score
More than 20 Critical – noticeable score deduction

Reference values for CSS files (included directly in the HTML):

Count Assessment
Up to 7 Acceptable
8–12 Elevated – feeds into the score
More than 12 Critical – noticeable score deduction

A typical cause: every WordPress plugin often ships its own stylesheets and scripts, without these being bundled.

JavaScript weight

The total weight of all statically detected JavaScript files directly affects load time and browser runtime.

Reference values:

Weight Assessment
Under 350 KB Good
350–700 KB Elevated – feeds into the score
Over 700 KB Critical – noticeable score deduction

Fonts

Too many or too heavy font files delay the rendering of visible text.

Reference values:

Signal Assessment
Up to 4 font files and under 250 KB in total Good
More than 4 files or over 250 KB Notable – feeds into the score

Remedy: cut down the number of font variants (load only the weights and styles you actually use), use font subsetting and serve WOFF2 exclusively.

Requests and data volume

Besides individual resources, turbometrics also assesses the total number and total weight of all requests.

Reference values for requests:

Count Assessment
Up to 70 Good
71–120 Elevated
More than 120 Critical

Reference values for total data volume:

Weight Assessment
Under 2 MB Good
2–4 MB Elevated
Over 4 MB Critical

External hosts

Every external host requires its own DNS lookup and TLS handshake before resources can be loaded.

Reference value: more than 4 external hosts counts as notable.

Typical sources: tracking services, consent banners, fonts from Google Fonts, CDN integrations, chat widgets.

Uncached first-party assets

Your own static files without long-lived cache headers are transferred again on every page load.

Reference value: more than 10 uncached first-party assets counts as notable.

Images

The number and weight of images are assessed in context. WooCommerce shops and builder pages get higher tolerance values, because they naturally use more images.

Reference values for image count:

Page type Notable Critical
Standard > 10 > 20
Builder (Elementor, Divi, …) > 15 > 35
WooCommerce > 25 > 60

Reference values for total image weight:

Page type Notable Critical
Standard > 1.2 MB > 2.5 MB
Builder > 1.6 MB > 3.2 MB
WooCommerce > 2.0 MB > 4.5 MB

Reference value for a single image:

Page type Notable
Standard > 300 KB
Builder > 350 KB
WooCommerce > 400 KB

Page build timing

The page build timeline shows the most important timing events while the page loads, in chronological order. It helps you spot the phase in which rendering stalls.

Waterfall

The resource waterfall shows all loaded resources with their start and end times. That makes loading orders, blockages and late third-party requests directly visible.

Further reading

MetricsProblems & recommendationsScoring & methodology