Google Lighthouse: What it is and what checks it can perform on your website
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 6:15 am
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Google Lighthouse: What it is and what checks it can perform on your website
Google Lighthouse is an open source tool for performing technical audits of websites. The tool was developed by Google and analyzes the following aspects of a URL: performance, progressive web app, accessibility, best practices, and SEO.
The Google Lighthouse framework has already been integrated into Google's other performance analysis tools, such as PageSpeed Insights analysis and browser-based audits via the Chrome browser developer tools.
Table of Contents view
What is Google Lighthouse: Definition
Google Lighthouse lets you monitor the performance of malta phone number data websites. Lighthouse 1.0 was initially developed as an auditing tool for progressive web apps (PWAs). Version 2.0 then included performance and SEO analysis for regular websites. The third iteration, Lighthouse version 3.0, was released in early 2018 and provided a new layout and direct integration into Google's Chrome browser developer tools. Lighthouse remains an open-source analytics framework that works at the URL level.
Google Lighthouse Audit Selection
What checks can Google Lighthouse perform?
The audits offered by Lighthouse are grouped into five optimization categories: Performance, Best Practices, Accessibility, SEO and Progressive Web Apps.
Lighthouse Results Overview
Users can select one, several, or all five categories, depending on what aspects of their website they want to analyze.
Performance
The performance section of Google LightHouse
In this category, Google Lighthouse analyzes how fast a website or app loads and how quickly users can access or view the content. Here, Lighthouse analyzes six speed parameters:
First Contentful Paint: Indicates the time before the first text or image becomes visible to users.
First Meaningful Paint : Indicates the moment when the main content of a page becomes visible to users.
Speed Index : The Speed Index provides a uniform metric to express how quickly a page's content loads.
Time to Interactive: indicates the time before the user is able to fully interact with the page and its content.
First CPU Idle: The value in this category returns the time when the page's main thread activity is low enough to process inputs.
Estimated input latency: The above result is an estimate (in milliseconds) of how long an app should react to user input during the 5-second window of maximum computation during page load. If the latency is greater than 50 ms, users may perceive an app or website as too slow.
Google LightHouse Opportunities Overview
Lighthouse's performance analysis also includes recommendations for improvements. These show opportunities to reduce load times, such as compressing images, cleaning up JavaScript or CSS, or reducing render-blocking resources such as JavaScript, external requests, or CSS rules. Properly implemented caching, server response times , and avoiding (or limiting) redirects are also recommended ways to improve site performance.
Google Lighthouse performance recommendations are as follows:
Reduce render-blocking resources
Offer images in next-generation formats
Enable text compression
Redirect unused CSS
Make sure the text remains visible while the web font loads
Use efficient cache policies on static assets
Improves Critical Rendering Path (CRP)
Avoid large images
Delay loading of off-screen images
Minify / Compress CSS
Minify / Compress JavaScript
Optimize images
Enable server pre-connection
Keep server response time (Time To First Byte, TTFB) low
Avoid redirects
Preload key requests
Use video formats for animated content
Reduce the total weight of bytes
Avoid excessive DOM size
Measure performance with user timing indicators and measures
Reduce JavaScript startup time
Reduce main thread payload
Best Practices
Lighthouse Best Practices Overview
The 16 best practices tested by Lighthouse focus primarily on website security and modern web development standards. Google Lighthouse analyzes whether HTTPS and HTTP/2 are used, checks whether resources come from secure sources, and assesses the vulnerability of JavaScript libraries. Other best practices look at secure database connections and avoiding the use of insecure commands, such as document.write (), or those that incorporate antiquated APIs.
Google Lighthouse: What it is and what checks it can perform on your website
Google Lighthouse is an open source tool for performing technical audits of websites. The tool was developed by Google and analyzes the following aspects of a URL: performance, progressive web app, accessibility, best practices, and SEO.
The Google Lighthouse framework has already been integrated into Google's other performance analysis tools, such as PageSpeed Insights analysis and browser-based audits via the Chrome browser developer tools.
Table of Contents view
What is Google Lighthouse: Definition
Google Lighthouse lets you monitor the performance of malta phone number data websites. Lighthouse 1.0 was initially developed as an auditing tool for progressive web apps (PWAs). Version 2.0 then included performance and SEO analysis for regular websites. The third iteration, Lighthouse version 3.0, was released in early 2018 and provided a new layout and direct integration into Google's Chrome browser developer tools. Lighthouse remains an open-source analytics framework that works at the URL level.
Google Lighthouse Audit Selection
What checks can Google Lighthouse perform?
The audits offered by Lighthouse are grouped into five optimization categories: Performance, Best Practices, Accessibility, SEO and Progressive Web Apps.
Lighthouse Results Overview
Users can select one, several, or all five categories, depending on what aspects of their website they want to analyze.
Performance
The performance section of Google LightHouse
In this category, Google Lighthouse analyzes how fast a website or app loads and how quickly users can access or view the content. Here, Lighthouse analyzes six speed parameters:
First Contentful Paint: Indicates the time before the first text or image becomes visible to users.
First Meaningful Paint : Indicates the moment when the main content of a page becomes visible to users.
Speed Index : The Speed Index provides a uniform metric to express how quickly a page's content loads.
Time to Interactive: indicates the time before the user is able to fully interact with the page and its content.
First CPU Idle: The value in this category returns the time when the page's main thread activity is low enough to process inputs.
Estimated input latency: The above result is an estimate (in milliseconds) of how long an app should react to user input during the 5-second window of maximum computation during page load. If the latency is greater than 50 ms, users may perceive an app or website as too slow.
Google LightHouse Opportunities Overview
Lighthouse's performance analysis also includes recommendations for improvements. These show opportunities to reduce load times, such as compressing images, cleaning up JavaScript or CSS, or reducing render-blocking resources such as JavaScript, external requests, or CSS rules. Properly implemented caching, server response times , and avoiding (or limiting) redirects are also recommended ways to improve site performance.
Google Lighthouse performance recommendations are as follows:
Reduce render-blocking resources
Offer images in next-generation formats
Enable text compression
Redirect unused CSS
Make sure the text remains visible while the web font loads
Use efficient cache policies on static assets
Improves Critical Rendering Path (CRP)
Avoid large images
Delay loading of off-screen images
Minify / Compress CSS
Minify / Compress JavaScript
Optimize images
Enable server pre-connection
Keep server response time (Time To First Byte, TTFB) low
Avoid redirects
Preload key requests
Use video formats for animated content
Reduce the total weight of bytes
Avoid excessive DOM size
Measure performance with user timing indicators and measures
Reduce JavaScript startup time
Reduce main thread payload
Best Practices
Lighthouse Best Practices Overview
The 16 best practices tested by Lighthouse focus primarily on website security and modern web development standards. Google Lighthouse analyzes whether HTTPS and HTTP/2 are used, checks whether resources come from secure sources, and assesses the vulnerability of JavaScript libraries. Other best practices look at secure database connections and avoiding the use of insecure commands, such as document.write (), or those that incorporate antiquated APIs.