Have you noticed your website loading slowly? One of the common culprits could be Google Analytics. While it is an essential tool for tracking traffic, its default tracking code can negatively impact page load speed and hinder SEO optimization, ultimately affecting your PageSpeed Insights scores.
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Why Does Google Analytics Slow Down Your Website?
According to Google PageSpeed Insights, several factors contribute to Google Analytics affecting website performance:
🔴 Blocking Render (Synchronous Loading): The gtag.js
script may slow down page loading, especially if it loads immediately when a user visits your site.
🔴 Multiple Requests to Google Servers: When a webpage loads, gtag.js
sends HTTP requests to Google’s servers, which may cause latency, especially if the server is far from the user.
🔴 Impact on Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): If the analytics script loads too early, it can delay rendering of the page’s main content, reducing user experience.
A real-world test from Moz showed that delaying Google Analytics loading can increase PageSpeed Insights scores from 70 to 90+, depending on the website.
Solution: Lazy Load Google Analytics
The easiest way to optimize Google Analytics without affecting tracking data is to load the script only when a user interacts with the website. This improves load speed without losing analytical data.
Original Google Analytics Code
Typically, you would add the following code inside the <head>
tag:
However, this method loads gtag.js
immediately, which can impact performance.
Fix: Load Google Analytics When the User Scrolls
The optimized script below loads Google Analytics only when the user scrolls. This prevents Google Analytics from slowing down the initial load time.
Add the following code inside the <head>
tag of your website:
Note: Replace the tag ID (id=G-JJ630EYS6J
) with your own Google Tag ID.
How to Add This Code to WordPress
If you use WordPress, you can insert this script into your theme’s functions.php file to automatically load it in the footer:
Results After Applying This Method
According to SEO experts’ tests:
✅ PageSpeed Insights scores can increase from 65 to 90+ on mobile.
✅ Improves First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
✅ Better user experience without losing tracking data.
Things to Consider When Using This Method
- If your website needs immediate tracking on page load for Google Ads or Facebook Ads, delaying Analytics may not be suitable.
- Other alternatives include:
- Using Google Tag Manager server-side to offload tracking from the client.
- Proxying Google Analytics through Cloudflare Zaraz to reduce latency.
- This method will ignore 0-second visits, such as bot traffic, but that’s usually not an issue since the focus is on tracking real users.
💡 If Google Analytics is slowing down your website, try implementing this lazy load technique. It’s a simple yet effective way to improve speed while maintaining accurate tracking. 🚀
📌 Have you tried this method? Share your experience in the comments!