How to keep total page weight under 1.5 MB
Total page weight should stay under 1.5 MB, and images and scripts are usually most of it. Compress and resize images, remove scripts you do not use and lazy-load content below the fold so phones on slow networks load the page fast.
By ratemysite.ai editorial team. Updated .
How do you fix it?
- Open the Network panel in Chrome DevTools, reload the page, and sort by size to find the heaviest files.
- Resize images to their display size, compress them, and switch to WebP or AVIF.
- Remove unused JavaScript and CSS, and drop libraries you load for one small feature.
- Add loading="lazy" to images and iframes below the first screen, but not to the hero image.
- Enable Brotli or gzip compression, then re-run the audit and confirm the Page weight check passes.
What is page weight?
Page weight is the total number of bytes a browser downloads to display a page: the HTML, images, fonts, styles, scripts and any other files. The median mobile page today is several megabytes, so a page under 1.5 MB is already lighter than most. Lighter pages load faster on weak connections, use less data, and tend to have better LCP and lower bounce rates.
Where does the weight usually come from?
Images are normally the largest part, often more than half. A single uncompressed photo can be 3 MB. After images come JavaScript bundles, fonts and third-party tags. Fix the biggest items first: resize and compress images, use modern formats, subset fonts to the characters you need, and remove scripts that no longer serve a purpose. Set a budget, such as 1.5 MB total and 300 KB of JavaScript, and check it with every release.
How much does this check matter?
- This check is worth about 1.4% of the overall score.
- A finished report is reused for 24 hours before you can re-analyze it.
- Each page is fetched with a timeout of 10 seconds, and HTML larger than 2 MB is not audited.
What else do people ask?
- Is page weight counted before or after compression?
- Transfer size, after compression, is what visitors download. Check both, because large uncompressed scripts still cost parsing time.
- Why does weight matter if my users have fast internet?
- Many visitors use phones on mobile networks, and heavy pages cost data and battery as well as time.