I'm helping a friend with his website, and most pages load in about 500-550 milliseconds. However, I checked Google Search Console and saw a warning indicating that the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is over 2.5 seconds, which really surprised me. The only asset that seems to load after half a second is *Google Analytics.* What's the best way to resolve this? Should I consider self-hosting the JavaScript package? I'm worried that would be a nightmare to maintain.
4 Answers
If Google Analytics is set up properly, it shouldn’t block the rendering process. You might want to revisit how you have it integrated; there could be something off in your setup.
Honestly, self-hosting sounds like it could be a hassle. You could use tools like PageGym to analyze your loading behavior. If it looks like the GA script is the issue, try blocking it temporarily in the waterfall view and re-run your tests to see if that makes a difference.
Remember, LCP measures different metrics than just load time. You might have elements like large images that are being painted after the page loads. Can you check if the LCP report specifies what's causing the delay? Also, ensure that your Google Analytics script is set to load asynchronously, which should help prevent it from blocking the render.
I switched to self-hosted analytics, like Plausible or Umami, and they seemed to perform well without causing issues with core web vitals.
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