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Lazy loading demystified

August 21, 2025 · 25 min

Show notes

Optimize your website's performance with lazy loading techniques. In this episode, John Mueller and Martin Splitt discuss lazy loading, and its SEO implications. Find out how lazy loading affects indexing, ranking, and Core Web Vitals. Whether you're using native lazy loading or custom JavaScript libraries, this episode provides insights for developers on how to enhance website speed and user experience.

Resources:

Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr098-transcript

Chapters: 0:00 - Introduction 0:43 - What is lazy loading? 1:57 - HTTP chunking 3:13 - Primary drivers behind lazy loading 6:19 - Why not default lazy load all images? 8:29 - Lazy loading and SEO 8:39 - Impact to Core Web Vitals 9:17 - Largest contentful paint 9:58 - Affecting indexing and ranking 11:30 - Custom libraries for lazy loading 14:17 - How to recognize a problem 15:25 - Practical point of view 16:52 - Infinite scroll vs. lazy loading 19:31 - Lazy loading videos 20:51 - Small images and decorative images 23:16 - Where to chat about lazy loading images 23:55 - Outro

Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral

Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

#SOTRpodcast #SEO

Speaker: Martin Splitt, John Muelle, Martin Splitt Products Mentioned: Search Console

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