Signs it is time to revisit font loading
The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. A few signals that font loading is due some attention.
Real-world numbers from actual visitors matter more than a score produced on a fast laptop. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.
The signals
- Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
- The answer depends on who you ask
- Custom fonts commonly block the first paint
- Self-hosting removes a third-party round trip
The practical version
A sensible fallback prevents invisible text. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
What this looks like day to day
Performance work is mostly subtraction, which makes it unpopular and effective. Three things worth confirming about font loading before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Self-hosting removes a third-party round trip — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.