Performance
When to use preconnect resource hints
What 13x checks
This is rule performance.preconnect in the public registry: Third-party origins are preconnected. It runs on every audit, against the pages we actually fetched, and its result is derived from the response rather than estimated.
- Surface
- Performance
- Score weight
- 3 of the readiness score
- Scope
- Reported as skipped when the page renders only with JavaScript
- Applies
- Only where the market or the page shape makes it relevant
Registry version 2026-07-30. Every rule is published, and the audit is deterministic — the same page produces the same finding every time.
The fix
The same text the audit hands you when this check fails on your own site.
Third-party origins used without a connection hint: .
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin />
<link rel="dns-prefetch" href="https://analytics.example.com" />Each new origin costs a DNS lookup, a TCP handshake and a TLS negotiation before a single byte arrives — often 200–500 ms on mobile. preconnect starts that work as soon as the HTML is parsed.
Two constraints: only hint at origins the page genuinely uses, because each one holds open a connection, and keep it to three or four. crossorigin is required for fonts or the connection is not reused.
If the origin is a font CDN, self-hosting removes the round trip entirely and is the better fix.
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