How to maintain good PageSpeed Rank with external services

Question

So I'm grappling with brutal ranking degradation due to external services used in client sites. I've pretty much done everything I feel I have control over, including resolving render-blocking problems.

But one thing that runs like a red thread through all sites is that YSlow and PageSpeed get stuck at rankings in the D range at best because of browser caching and redirect advisories for external resources, including googles own analytics.js.

Now I know that some of these resources might be able to be moved locally, but often, especially in the case of redirect-chains - it seems like a daunting task.

Here's an example for an insane redirect chain:

https://d.adroll.com/cm/b/out
https://x.bidswitch.net/sync?dsp_id=44&user_id=NWY2MDZmY2M1NGUxZGVhZTE1NmZmNjgzYjI2ZjlmMGM
https://x.bidswitch.net/ul_cb/sync?dsp_id=44&user_id=NWY2MDZmY2M1NGUxZGVhZTE1NmZmNjgzYjI2ZjlmMGM
https://t.brand-server.com/match_back?bidder_id=4&external_user_id=da20ac56-bf05-4acc-8df2-2e92ceb9f4da
https://t.brand-server.com/ul_cb/match_back?bidder_id=4&external_user_id=da20ac56-bf05-4acc-8df2-2e92ceb9f4da
https://match.adsrvr.org/track/cmf/generic?ttd_pid=centro&ttd_tpi=1
https://match.adsrvr.org/track/cmb/generic?ttd_pid=centro&ttd_tpi=1
https://t.brand-server.com/match_back?bidder_id=1&external_user_id=09d385a1-bd5e-4dc0-84fb-1afdf83f1892
https://secure.adnxs.com/getuid?https://t.brand-server.com/match_back?bidder_id=3&external_user_id=$UID
https://t.brand-server.com/match_back?bidder_id=3&external_user_id=8261031581142479988
https://pixel-a.sitescout.com/dmp/pixelSync?nid=35
https://bcp.crwdcntrl.net/map/c=1389/tp=STSC/tpid=8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c?https%3A%2F%2Fsu.addthis.com%2Fred%2Fusync%3Fpid%3D11185%26puid%3D8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Ft.brand-server.com%252Fmatch_back%253Fbidder_id%253D5%2526external_user_id%253D8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c
https://bcp.crwdcntrl.net/map/ct=y/c=1389/tp=STSC/tpid=8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c?https%3A%2F%2Fsu.addthis.com%2Fred%2Fusync%3Fpid%3D11185%26puid%3D8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Ft.brand-server.com%252Fmatch_back%253Fbidder_id%253D5%2526external_user_id%253D8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c
https://su.addthis.com/red/usync?pid=11185&puid=8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c&url=https%3A%2F%2Ft.brand-server.com%2Fmatch_back%3Fbidder_id%3D5%26external_user_id%3D8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c
https://t.brand-server.com/match_back?bidder_id=5&external_user_id=8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c

Here's some caching/expires headers warnings:

https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Oswald:400,700
http://cdn.searchspring.net/ajax_search/sites/742gv8/js/742gv8.js
http://cdn.searchspring.net/ajax_search/js/searchspring-catalog.min.js
http://cdn.searchspring.net/autocomplete/searchspring-autocomplete.min.js
http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js
https://seal-stlouis.bbb.org/seals/blue-seal-200-42-miniaturemarketllc-310240951.png
https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:600,700,400,300
https://trustlogo.com/trustlogo/javascript/trustlogo.js
https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js
http://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id=GTM-5RMBM2
http://tag.perfectaudience.com/serve/51dc7c34a84900f9d3000002.js
http://a.adroll.com/j/roundtrip.js
https://www.facebook.com/tr/?id=1860590510836052&ev=PageView&dl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miniaturemarket.com%2F&rl=&if=false&ts=1480458368216&v=2.5.0
https://www.facebook.com/tr/?id=1610476729247227&ev=PageView&dl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miniaturemarket.com%2F&rl=&if=false&ts=1480458368220&v=2.5.0
https://trustlogo.com/trustlogo/images/popup/seal_bg.gif
https://trustlogo.com/trustlogo/images/popup/warranty_level.gif
https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js
https://pixel-geo.prfct.co/tagjs?check_cookie=1&a_id=3045&source=js_tag
https://www.google-analytics.com/plugins/ua/ec.js
https://s.adroll.com/pixel/P3MVZ4FMVNG67LVRKHALEV/CSFUSWFLCFBNTBB2REH2EP/V42TOE4T75HOHDQUCEXVPV.js
http://pixel-geo.prfct.co/seg/?add=842026,3277058&source=js_tag&a_id=3045
https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1610476729247227&ev=ViewContent&cd[rtb_id]=3277058&noscript=1
https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1610476729247227&ev=ViewContent&cd[rtb_id]=842026&noscript=1
https://www.facebook.com/tr/?id=1638890983076166&ev=PageView&dl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miniaturemarket.com%2F&rl=&if=false&ts=1480458369206&cd[segment_eid]=%5B%22V42TOE4T75HOHDQUCEXVPV%22%5D&v=2.5.0
https://analytics.twitter.com/i/adsct?p_id=48571&p_user_id=pa_HjjM3Ntt5wLVRxjwi
https://image2.pubmatic.com/AdServer/Pug?vcode=bz0yJnR5cGU9MSZjb2RlPTMyNDMmdGw9MTI5NjAw&piggybackCookie=uid:pa_HjjM3Ntt5wLVRxjwi
https://www.facebook.com/fr/u.php?p=292157157590619&m=pa_HjjM3Ntt5wLVRxjwi
https://www.facebook.com/fr/u.php?t=2592000&p=443937282305007&m=NWY2MDZmY2M1NGUxZGVhZTE1NmZmNjgzYjI2ZjlmMGM
https://analytics.twitter.com/i/adsct?p_user_id=NWY2MDZmY2M1NGUxZGVhZTE1NmZmNjgzYjI2ZjlmMGM&p_id=823423
https://pixel-geo.prfct.co/cb?partnerId=goo
https://d.adroll.com/cm/g/in?google_ula=1535926,0
https://pixel.rubiconproject.com/tap.php?cookie_redirect=1&v=194538&nid=3644&put=NWY2MDZmY2M1NGUxZGVhZTE1NmZmNjgzYjI2ZjlmMGM&expires=365
https://us-u.openx.net/w/1.0/sd?cc=1&id=537114372&val=pa_HjjM3Ntt5wLVRxjwi
https://dsum-sec.casalemedia.com/rum?cm_dsp_id=105&external_user_id=NWY2MDZmY2M1NGUxZGVhZTE1NmZmNjgzYjI2ZjlmMGM&expiration=1511994369&C=1
https://us-u.openx.net/w/1.0/sd?cc=1&id=537103138&val=5f606fcc54e1deae156ff683b26f9f0c
https://pixel.rubiconproject.com/tap.php?cookie_redirect=1&v=189868&nid=4106&expires=30&put=pa_HjjM3Ntt5wLVRxjwi
https://idsync.rlcdn.com/377928.gif?partner_uid=5f606fcc54e1deae156ff683b26f9f0c&redirect=1
https://pixel.prfct.co/seg/?add=695885
https://pixel.prfct.co/cb?partnerId=mrin
http://ib.adnxs.com/mapuid?member=364&user=11465672070136222257
https://t.brand-server.com/match_back?bidder_id=5&external_user_id=8157edd8-d80d-432e-bf0b-47234df4942c

It would seem that being able to do something about this would drastically improve the score as it's about the only thing left to fix. So my question is - what can be done about it?

Has anyone tried solutions like rewriting the urls after source generate through a proxy that covers the redirect chain or fetches the resources and passes them through with modified headers?

Is it at all worth it or are these page scores just to be ignored?

What are plausible alterntives?

Apologies for a loaded question...

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 27 '16 at 07:31

I've tried dealing with the same issue in the past, and although I couldn't find a good solution for the redirect chains and caching issue, there are few guidelines I follow:

Think carefully on every external resource - do you really need it? Do you really have to load it before any user interactions? If so - can it be fetched from your server instead? In your example, I would copy the Google fonts to my server.
Never @import stuff in CSS. It's slow by definition as it requires at least two sequential HTTP requests. Try importing as many resources as possible in the or just before , or precompile using LESS or SCSS.
Ignore widely used resources such as Google Analytics. It's improbable that Google will lower your site's ranking just because you use them. In any case, always look for the "async" implementation of the services you are using.

Hope this helps.

This. By "brutal ranking degradation due to external services", do you mean search rankings, or just rankings on the page speed tools? If it's the former, you really need to consider whether you need those services or not. Do they aid usability? If it's the latter, ignore the page speed rankings and look at whether the external services are actually slowing the website down considerably. What is their percentage of load time compared to everything else? If they are having a big impact on speed - again consider whether you need them. — Alex Harford, Sep 20 '17 at 16:35

How to maintain good PageSpeed Rank with external services

1 Answers1