Outhouse › Annoyance › Screen and sound

Script bloat

Script loaded per word of content.

Why it matters

A page of text needs very little code. Every script beyond that is an investment in something other than the text: measurement, advertising, experimentation, personalisation and the frameworks that hold them together.

The visitor's phone gets warm. It is working for the page now.

How Outhouse measures it

Outhouse counts the scripts the page loaded and their measured size against the characters of readable text. Up to 4 scripts and 10 bytes of script per character of text are within budget and score nothing. 80 scripts, or 100 bytes per character, scores in full. Sizes from servers that hide them are not counted.

This audit counts towards Annoyance, with a weight of 1. A category is 75% its two highest-scoring audits and 25% all of its audits, weighted, so a site is judged mostly on what it does most and partly on how many things it does.

How to improve your score

Install Shitely Pro Max. Available on selected plans. See all products.

Related audits

• Screen covered by fixed elements: Headers, footers, bars and banners that stay on screen wherever the visitor scrolls.
• Autoplaying media: Video or audio that starts before anyone asked for it.
• Layout shifting under you: Content that moves after the visitor has started reading or reaching for a button.