LCP Creeping up for Desktop

londonblue

I've been working on optimising pages to reduce the LCP, and while it seems to be working for mobile (which is good as that was always higher) my desktop timings are creeping up in the 'yellow' section. Only by a little.

When I run a lab test on one of my larger pages, a lot of the suggestions are for Javascript which is clearly to do with Ezoic ad serving. I don't think there's much I can do about this. There's a little bit of unused CSS which I could look at removing. My score probably isn't horrendous and maybe if it is a rolling score it will gradually start decreasing again. Any tips though would be welcome.

Heather

londonblue Hello, Heather here, I hope you are well. Sure no problem we can help with this. As a first step I would recommend working through this document here: https://community.ezoic.com/d/3808-how-do-i-get-my-core-web-vitals-to-green If you have any questions as you work through this document please do let us know. many thanks

londonblue

Hi Heather,

Thanks for the reply.

I think I might just need to wait and see for a bit. Something is improving on mobile at present which is good, and the desktop hasn't dropped a huge amount.

As I said, though, the main issues raised seem to be Ezoic scripts which I guess I can't do anything about.

Heather

londonblue Your site is currently new to Ezoic and so part of the process that your site is going through is the pages are starting to hit the Ezoic cache. As more and more pages are requested by readers and are within the Ezoic cache the more your core web vital scores will increase. Ezoic has multiple cache's throughout the globe which 'move' the pages closer to the reader by copying them into the cache so that the next time a new reader requests that page rather than going all the way back to your host Ezoic can go to the nearest cache and get a copy.

The best next step to take is to work through the article that I shared with you. This article will help you to set up the Ezoic Leap app optimally. At the moment your site doesn't have everything set up correctly which is again impacting your core web vital scores.

Within the article it walks you through a process to help your site to get to green core web vitals. If you have any questions as you work through the article please do let me know. many thanks

londonblue

It would be useful to know what "isn't set up correctly" rather than simply pointing me to the same article again. I've already been through the article and as far as I am aware have set up everything as far as possible, so I'm not sure what I'm missing out on. Of course the caching will help, I was simply making an observation that the LCP graph is creeping upwards on desktop. I'll leave it for now, I'd rather spend time on content than tweaking something and searching around for things I've missed.

Heather

londonblue The reason why we share articles for these kind of topics is because of the level of detail that we go into within the article. It helps you to have a wide range of knowledge on the subject as well as be able to walk through a step by step guide of how to fix the issues that you are having. For example, the article walks you through the background about core web vitals, the steps that you can take to improve the core web vitals yourself and how to reach out to our Leap team so that they can work with you on the next steps to take.

I have taken a look at your site and the steps that are next for you to do are steps 3, 4 and 5 and then to wait two weeks to see what impact this has on your core web vitals.

If they are not improving after this amount of time then we recommend to reach out to our Leap team. The article talks you through how to do this. If you get stuck as you work through the article please do reach out and we would be delighted to assist you with the next step to take. many thanks

londonblue

As far as I can see I've done everything in (3) at least to a sensible level of digging. The reasons given so far are purely to do with caching, and you've said this also, so I will wait for the level of cache pages to increase. I have already increased cache age/expiry values. Let's see what happens when the caching is a lot higher than the ₅₀% it is now.

(4) I haven't asked the team to set up the values but I did go through and set everything up myself. I do have a fairly detailed understanding of most of the different technologies involved, it's just making sure it's set up on Ezoic's platform which is the new thing for me.

(5) I have been working on this since I joined and have followed and changed all of the recommendations (with the exception of switching off ads above the fold).

So I am confused as to where you are getting data to suggest that I haven't done a thorough walkthrough of these points. However, I can feel this discussion is starting to go circular and may grind to a halt, so I'll just wait now. I had merely reached out to see if there was anything which could be done about the scripts over which I have no direct control.

Mark_P

londonblue We appreciate your reply and apologies if you feel the discussion is going circular.

If you wish to wait this is fine, we are here should you need us.

Thank you.

londonblue

Mark_P Hi,

Sorry, I'm genuinely not trying to be difficult. I think the waiting is something required for a number of steps especially when new to Ezoic, so this is fine. This is just how it goes with some of the rolling stats, they're going to have history affecting them.

I genuinely don't know what else I can realistically change on my site at the moment (thinking of 80/20 principles as well, not trying to change every little thing for potential minute gains) The mobile figures are increasing so something must be good and I'm going to trust for now that the desktop will follow. I'll keep an eye on things.

APerez

londonblue In this case, yes it is probably best to wait, see, and have Leap gather all the information it can over the next couple of weeks. That should provide plenty of info for the next steps on what to tweak to make it even more optimized. Ideally, this is what we hope for most publishers to do as Leap isn't a quick-fix-one-button-push that solves everything instantly. It is a tool to help with making the best of your site over time.

londonblue

On a related note, should I switch off my hosts server-level caching solutions as far as possible? My concern is that if I switch them off, any pages which aren't cached by Ezoic my visitors will get straight from my web host's machines, so if I switch it off they will get a slower response and I will use more resources.

That said, if I achieve a very high Ezoic cache, this won't be so much an issue.

APerez

londonblue Ideally, turning off any 3rd party caching from plugins or at your host would be best as any caching that sits in front of the Ezoic caching may not get caught or updated.