Audit what is actually loading
Open your site with the browser's network tab and look at the external domains being contacted. Most businesses are surprised.
Tracking pixels from campaigns that ended two years ago are extremely common. They cost speed and they carry privacy obligations for no benefit whatsoever.
What each one costs
| Script | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Analytics | Small, usually justified |
| Chat widget | Moderate — load it lazily |
| Embedded map | Large — consider a static image with a link |
| Web fonts | Moderate — self-host where licensing allows |
| Advertising pixels | Moderate, and multiplied by how many you have |
| Social embeds | Large, per embed |
Load them properly
- Defer or load asynchronously, never blocking
- Only on pages that need them — a map script on every page is waste
- Lazily, after the main content, for anything below the fold
- Self-host what you can, particularly fonts
They are a privacy consideration too
Third-party scripts frequently set cookies and send data. That affects your consent obligations and what your privacy notice must say.
Removing the ones you do not need simplifies both the performance and the compliance picture.
They are also a dependency
A third-party script that becomes slow or unavailable affects your site. Loading them asynchronously means a slow service degrades rather than blocks.
That single precaution prevents a third party's outage becoming yours.