www.nytimes.com

The numbers

First visit

2.20 g CO₂e

Return visit

0.160 g CO₂e

Hosting

unknown

LCP

844 ms

CLS

0.004

TTFB

219 ms

At 10,000 views a month this page emits about 202.6 kg CO₂e a year, roughly 830 km in an average petrol car. The estimate assumes 75% new and 25% returning visitors, a measured cache reload ratio of 7%, and world-average grid intensity. How we calculate this

1. Audit third-party servicessave ~0.671 g/visit (5.89 MB)High impact · moderate effort

   22 third-party domains account for 11.79 MB (79% of the page).

   Remove services that no longer earn their place; load the rest on interaction (facades for embeds, delayed consent-gated tags). Each third party is also a privacy and performance dependency.

   • vp.nyt.com7.62 MB
   • static01.nyt.com2.03 MB
   • pay.google.com480 kB
   • g1.nyt.com315 kB
   • pagead2.googlesyndication.com267 kB
   • rumcdn.geoedge.be244 kB

   WSG 3.5: Treat third parties the same as first parties
2. Defer video and audiosave ~0.434 g/visit (3.81 MB)High impact · quick fix

   7.62 MB of audio/video downloads during initial page load.

   Never autoload media: use preload="none" with a poster image, load players on interaction, and stream in an efficient codec (AV1/HEVC).

   • 175894_1_08opinions-roundtable-clip1_wg_1080p…4.15 MB
   • 175894_1_08opinions-roundtable-clip1_wg_1080p…3.47 MB
   • index-f1-v1-a1.m3u81.3 kB

   WSG 2.9: Optimize media to reduce resource use
3. Reduce JavaScript payloadsave ~0.092 g/visit (808 kB)High impact · moderate effort

   262 scripts total 3.23 MB on the wire (10.35 MB decoded). Bundles this size usually carry a lot of unused code.

   Split bundles per route, tree-shake dependencies, and audit with a bundle analyzer or coverage profile. A 25% cut is a conservative target for bundles this size.

   • vendor-DVH0GSGI.js427 kB
   • grumi.js237 kB
   • gtm.js207 kB
   • pubads_impl.js206 kB
   • clientag.js201 kB

   WSG 3.2: Minify and remove unused codeWSG 3.3: Modularize bandwidth-heavy components
4. Convert and compress imagessave ~0.085 g/visit (746 kB)High impact · quick fix

   20 images (1.66 MB) ship in legacy formats (JPEG/PNG/GIF).

   Serve AVIF (or WebP) with responsive srcset sizes, and re-compress oversized files. AVIF typically halves JPEG weight at the same visual quality.

   • wirecutter-album-art-square640.png318 kB
   • the-interview-album-art-square640.png233 kB
   • NYT-TheWeekender-Icon.jpg180 kB
   • NYT-OnTech-Icon.png132 kB
   • the-ezra-klen-show-album-art-square640.jpg110 kB

   WSG 2.9: Optimize media to reduce resource use
5. Fix caching for returning visitorssave ~0.026 g/visit (177 kB)High impact · quick fix

   On a repeat visit 708 kB of static assets were re-downloaded instead of coming from cache.

   Serve static assets with Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable and versioned filenames so returning visitors download almost nothing.

   • cannonball-album-art-square640.pngCache-Control: max-age=604800; stale-if-error=86400; stale-while-revalidate=30, public · 479 kB
   • gtm.jsCache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate · 207 kB
   • 00nat-immigration-asians-promo-blmg-smallSqua…Cache-Control: max-age=604800; stale-if-error=86400; stale-while-revalidate=30, public · 12 kB
   • ross-douthat-album-art-thumbLarge.jpgCache-Control: max-age=604800; stale-if-error=86400; stale-while-revalidate=30, public · 457 B
   • the-daily-album-art-mediumSquare149-v3.jpgCache-Control: max-age=604800; stale-if-error=86400; stale-while-revalidate=30, public · 441 B

   WSG 4.2: Optimize caching and support offline access
6. Lazy-load below-the-fold mediasave ~0.0090 g/visit (79 kB)High impact · quick fix

   11 below-the-fold images/iframes (1.02 MB) download immediately for every visitor.

   Add loading="lazy" to below-fold img and iframe elements (and keep it off the LCP image). Browsers then fetch them only when scrolling approaches.

   • wirecutter-album-art-square640.png318 kB
   • the-interview-album-art-square640.png233 kB
   • the-ezra-klen-show-album-art-square640.jpg110 kB
   • week-in-opinion-art-square640-v2.png93 kB
   • ross-douthat-album-art-square640.jpg89 kB

   WSG 2.9: Optimize media to reduce resource use
7. Optimize web fontssave ~0.012 g/visit (105 kB)Medium impact · quick fix

   12 font files total 301 kB.

   Subset fonts to used glyphs, prefer one variable font over multiple weights, serve WOFF2 only, and consider system fonts for UI text.

   • cheltenham-normal-400.a3ed7afe3eaa0a873f3fbd3…30 kB
   • cheltenham-text-cond-normal-700.7e78f9e7e6c2e…29 kB
   • cheltenham-normal-700.530cfb72378419eedb60da7…29 kB
   • cheltenham-normal-300.7ea91ebd036309e1fe756ee…28 kB
   • imperial-normal-400.6131cd77b6e216c7693ed925f…27 kB

   WSG 2.11: Use optimized web typography
8. Serve images at the size they displaysave ~0.0081 g/visit (71 kB)Medium impact · quick fix

   8 images are encoded at more than twice the pixels the layout shows, even accounting for this viewport's pixel density.

   Generate multiple sizes and let the browser pick with srcset/sizes; a 4000px original behind a 400px slot spends bandwidth no screen displays.

   • wirecutter-album-art-square640.png318 kB
   • the-interview-album-art-square640.png233 kB
   • 12europe-eclipse-carousel-mgwj-threeByTwoMedi…124 kB
   • the-ezra-klen-show-album-art-square640.jpg110 kB
   • week-in-opinion-art-square640-v2.png93 kB

   WSG 2.9: Optimize media to reduce resource use
9. Verify your hosting energyMedium impact · moderate effort

   This host has not published renewable energy evidence with the Green Web Foundation, so its energy source is unknown.

   Choose a provider listed in the Green Web Directory, or ask your current provider to publish evidence (and a carbon.txt). This cuts the data-center share of every single page view.

   • carbon.txtNo carbon.txt found at the site root; publishing one is the lightest first step.

   WSG 4.1: Use sustainable hosting
10. Upgrade compression beyond gzipsave ~0.064 g/visit (565 kB)Advisory · quick fix

    3.76 MB of text ships gzip-compressed; Brotli or Zstandard would cut roughly another 15-20%, and browsers without them fall back to gzip automatically.

    Serve precompressed Brotli for static text assets (highest level, compressed at build time) and enable Brotli or zstd for dynamic responses; keep gzip only as the fallback.

    • vendor-DVH0GSGI.js427 kB
    • pay410 kB
    • nytimes.com255 kB
    • clientag.js201 kB
    • Home-DxV6PcP-.js152 kB

    WSG 4.3: Reduce data transfer with compression
11. Remove references to broken resourcessave ~<0.001 g/visit (997 B)Advisory · quick fix

    6 requests answered 4xx/5xx on load: transfer and connections spent on nothing, on every single visit.

    Delete or fix the references (stale asset URLs, dead third-party tags). Each one is a request the page provably does not need.

    • 174073_1_00vid-rv-eswatini-magazine_wg_1080p.vttHTTP 404 · 515 B
    • 175700_1_00vid-rv-well-rfk-lancaster_wg_1080p…HTTP 404 · 218 B
    • 174073_1_00vid-rv-eswatini-magazine_wg_1080p.vttHTTP 404 · 425 B
    • 175700_1_00vid-rv-well-rfk-lancaster_wg_1080p…HTTP 404 · 185 B
    • 174073_1_00vid-rv-eswatini-magazine_wg_1080p.vttHTTP 404 · 470 B

    WSG 4.4: Setup necessary error pages and redirection links
12. Set a page-weight budgetAdvisory · moderate effort

    At 14.83 MB per view this page rates F. The findings above list where the weight is.

    Agree a transfer budget (e.g. under 975 kB reaches a B), enforce it in CI, and re-scan after each change to hold the line.

    WSG 3.1: Set goals based on performance and energy impact
13. Remove the entry redirectAdvisory · quick fix

    The address that was scanned goes through 1 redirect before the document is served, ending at https://www.nytimes.com/. Every hop is a full round trip on a connection that has not warmed up yet.

    Point links, sitemaps and canonical tags at the final address, and make the host redirect in one hop rather than chaining http to https to www.

    • https://nytimes.com/redirects to https://www.nytimes.com/

    WSG 4.4: Setup necessary error pages and redirection links
14. Simplify the document structureAdvisory · larger effort

    The page renders 7830 DOM elements, above the 1,500 guideline. Large trees cost memory and CPU on every visitor's device.

    Flatten wrapper markup, render long lists virtually or paginate, and prefer semantic elements over nested divs.

    WSG 3.6: Ensure code follows good semantic practices
15. Upgrade connections to HTTP/2 or HTTP/3Advisory · quick fix

    3 hosts serve five or more resources over HTTP/1.1, paying per-request connection and header overhead newer protocols eliminate.

    Enable HTTP/2 (or HTTP/3) on the server or move the assets behind a CDN that speaks it; multiplexing makes many small requests nearly free.

    • browser-intake-datadoghq.com46 requests over http/1.1
    • play.google.com8 requests over http/1.1
    • samizdat-graphql.nytimes.com5 requests over http/1.1

    WSG 3.1: Set goals based on performance and energy impact

Where the bytes are

• Audio / video7.62 MB · 3 req
• JavaScript3.23 MB · 262 req
• Images2.30 MB · 66 req
• Data (fetch)576 kB · 73 req
• Data (XHR)415 kB · 4 req
• Fonts301 kB · 12 req
• HTML276 kB · 4 req
• CSS86 kB · 29 req
• Other28 kB · 31 req