Signs it is time to revisit render-blocking resources

The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. A few signals that render-blocking resources is due some attention.

Performance work is mostly subtraction, which makes it unpopular and effective. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Scripts and styles in the head delay the first paint
• Defer anything that is not needed immediately

How to approach it

Third-party tags are frequent offenders. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

What this looks like day to day

Speed is a feature people notice only in its absence, and then they leave rather than complain. Three things worth confirming about render-blocking resources before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Defer anything that is not needed immediately — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.