Legible News has a goal of being a really fast news website so people don't have to wait to read the news. The best way to make sure that happens is to measure it against all other major news websites by using Google PageSpeed Insight audits, a tool and service Google makes freely available to web developers so they can improve the performance and speed of their websites.
The news websites are scored and ranked from the overall score calculated by Google Page PageSpeed Insights, which is a weighted score from the following 6 metrics:
- Cumulative Layout Shift
- First Contentful Paint
- Interactive
- Largest Contenful Paint
- Speed Index
- Total Blocking Time
Legible News attempts to explain each audit from the detailed speed report in a way that non-web developers can more easily understand how it impacts the news websites they read.
Text-only alternate websites
Some websites, like CNN and NPR, have a "lite" alternative to their main website that's text-only. I don't include those in the speed rankings because I want to encourage all news websites to make their primary experience faster. If those websites decided to change their primary experience with the text-only lite versions, I would include that in the rankings.
For now, text-only websites are noted in each speed report. For example, the NPR Speed Report links to their text-only website.
Ad blockers and JavaScript
News websites almost always load faster when ad blockers are installed or JavaScript is disabled, but most people who use the internet are not aware of this, nor should they be. Ideally news websites simply build faster websites and eliminate bloat so more people can enjoy a faster, more focused internet.
The speed tests are run as if they're a non-technical person viewing the websites in a stock browser without any plugins installed.