Options for render-blocking resources

With the Google page experience update coming up, I’m sure a lot of people are going to be aiming to push their webflow sites in terms of performance.

On PageSpeed Insights - our site is ranking 90-95 on Desktop - but on mobile it’s struggling (between 50-70).

Even after rolling out WebP images to replace png/jpg - the biggest blocker seems to be the min.css Webflow serves.

It seems to be taking so long to serve this 32kb file (2.3 seconds)

People have posted on the forums - but it seems to get shut down by saying essentially it’s a black box and can’t be changed and that page speed isn’t a big ranking factor. With the new update, I’d hope there can be more of a discussion on this?

However - elsewhere there is discussion of deferring CSS and JS - with WP having plugins for this.

Are there any updates on this topic or plans to update things?

Thanks very much,

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The core site css and js is served as it is by Webflow. You can’t change that. So you can only focus on things you can change.

Thanks for the reply Jeff.

I know you’ve mentioned this before - but with page experience rolling out - LCP is important and a ‘good score’ is considered 2.5 seconds.

When the Webflow css and js is served in 2.3 seconds with no options to alter things (as google suggests) - is there a way forward here?

I appreciate that Webflow simply may not be suited for this level of optimisation.

Let me know if I’m missing something or if I’m over-focusing on this metric.

Thanks,

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thanks for the info. Its relevant for me

You can always export your site and self host. Of course if you use the CMS you would have to export your data and build a back end. Alternatively you could leverage Udesly and JamStack your site. Webflow is a nocode solution and that’s where they focus so with that you have to either work around all the limitations or build with code.

Hey webdev… so are we able to defer the google javascripts such as the analytics and the captcha? These are a real problem. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as just placing ‘defer’ inside the script. :frowning: What are your thoughts?
Thanks!

If you can control the script tag you can set the async or defer flag there. If webflow loads it, via a setting in project settings then no. Webflow has limited options for optimizations.

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Hmm, ok, so I presume Webflow loads the Captcha because I used the element from their navigation.
So, what I am seeking is advice and knowledge around how to fix several issues in the Core Vitals on my site… for starters. I’m trying to fill gaps in my knowledge so to speak and I am seeking guidance. Are you able to guide me in some way? Would it be better for us to have a chat or is this not your thing?

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Any solutions for this problem?
I’m not passing Core Vitals because of this. Any workarounds?

IMHO, Webflow is not following current best practices as it relates to render blocking. They still act like it’s 2010. I get around the limitations by self hosting.

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I am also interested in optimizing that area.

I recently found resource that optimizes your JavaScript files: http://stacket.app (mod edit: no longer available) with this we could get a bit more optimization but I am unsure how much it would help since it would be an export.

Interested in a solution for this.

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any news on this? Why some resources are taking so long to load. It’s really hurting the mobile performance score. Is WP actually easier to optimize than WF? that’s disappointing.

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that’s good to hear, but my complain was about that webflow is already more expensive than average and I shouldn’t be paying more to have such basic stuff.

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Any update on this? @webflow

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This is something that should be on your marketing page. It is extremely sad to find out after days of work that Webflow self-hosting has mobile limitations.

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Not sure about this. If you’re self-hosting you can do whatever you want by editing the actual script calls in the HTMl file. Do you mean limitations with Webflow-hosted sites?

I don’t work for Webflow. Maybe they will see your post and take that into consideration.

Leaving a note as well hoping the Webflow team can update this issue or people just won’t rank well moving forward.

Any news?
Wordpress has countless tools/plugins for this.
This is a huge disadvantage of webflow…