Introduction
Whenever you try to create a website, it is important to keep an eye on the DOM size. Large DOM size leads to longer script implementations and huge memory consumption. A huge DOM size can cause a poor User Experience as the website takes more time to load. To improve the speed of your site and user experience it is required to reduce the problems created by a large DOM size.
What is DOM size?
DOM or Document Object Model is referred to as the structure of the objects that the browser creates at the time of loading a web page. It is a hierarchical structure in which there are various objects presented.
These objects may or may not be dependent on each other. It represents the HTML structure of a page as a tree, consisting of a series of tags.
There are some key terms mentioned below associated with the DOM:
- Nodes- Nodes also called leaves or HTML tags, are an essential element of DOM.
- Depth- Several elements presented in a branch are called the depth of a DOM.
- Child Element- The child element is the element available under another element. It means the elements presented between closing and opening HTML tags. For instance-Hola Madrid
Now you understand the basics of DOM, let's move further about what an excessive DOM size means.
Why does Avoid an Excessive DOM size warning happen?
A large and excessive DOM size happens when there are too many HTML tags available on your web page. An excessive DOM tree leads to higher memory consumption and longer style calculations. It also leads to a slow page loading time.
It also delays style processing and generates costly layout reflows. If you modify the DOM objects, you the control the specific page elements you want to show your user.
Thus if you want to improve the performance of the website and user experience you need to decrease the DOM size.
Avoid an excessive DOM size warning that appears on the screen because of the following errors:
- If there are more than 1500 HTML elements available on the web page.
- If a DOM tree contains node depth of beyond 32 nodes.
- If there are 60 children available in a parent element.
Generally, web developers try to keep the DOM size in check and regularly try to optimize it for better performance.
Impact of An Excessive DOM Size on Page Performance
A huge DOM size makes examining and reading a page complicated for the browser. As a result, the browser takes more time to represent the page on the screen.
Here are some of the problems associated with an excessive DOM size:
1) Network Efficiency and Load Performance:
A huge DOM tree has too many nodes that are invisible when the users load the page. It needlessly increases data costs because it needs to load more elements for users and slow down the loading time.
With the help of RabbitLoader, a plugin that helps you to boost the performance of your website. It reduces the loading time of pages and leads to a better user experience.
2) Memory Usage:
If you continue editing, updating, adding, or deleting branches to the DOM tree, it will absorb plenty of memory from the user's device. The extreme use of memory leads to slowdowns, performance issues, and worst site crashes as the device cannot hold the extreme load.
3)TTFB:
TTFB calculates the responsiveness of the first byte when a user interacts with a site. A huge DOM size means a larger HTML document. A large DOM slows down the response time of your website.
How to Fix Avoid An Excessive DOM Size Warning?
There are multiple ways to fix the issue of an excessive DOM size warning:
1) Do not use Badly Coded Plugins and Themes
You should try to avoid using a plugin that creates a huge number of DOM nodes like a slider or a calendar plugin. Alternatively, you should opt for a better-optimized plugin.
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Moreover, badly coded themes and plugins negatively influence the performance of your website. To get rid of this issue you need to remove the bloated code from the website with the help of a simplified editor or modifying sections of templates.
2) Reduce DOM nodes created by Javascript
Sometimes Javascript builds a huge number of DOM nodes. For instance, a chat widget inserts a huge number of DOM nodes into the DOM of your page. You have to resolve this issue by eliminating the Javascript file or by using an optimized widget.
3) Avoid page Builders that create Bloated HTML
Page builders have become important for site owners because of their easy-to-use features. Sometimes page builders like Elementor and WP Bakery create bloated code with a large number of DOM nodes.
As they are an important part of the workflow, it is hard to eliminate them together. Generally, you can resolve the problem by eliminating the bloated code and changing the workflow.
Many page builders insert too many div tags. With the help of simplified methods, you can avoid presenting unimportant components giving you more control over the HTML structure of the website.
Final Thoughts
An excessive Dom size decreases the load time and it leads to a poor user experience. Now you know why the speed of your site slows down and affect the users. You should keep an eye on the DOM size to improve the speed of the site.