We love a fast website! Don’t we? User Experience is the central paradigm of PageSpeed and Loading Time. The better your website optimizes with the PageSpeed metrics, the better results. Total Blocking Time is one of the few metrics which works for a better user experience. 

Total Blocking Time is the top optimization metric on Google Lighthouse Reports. TBT is mainly used to enhance the overall user experience and generate a better performance score. 

What is Total Blocking Time?

One can measure the Total Blocking Time by executing a long task. A long task has the tendency to block other inputs on the web browser.  Sometimes even blocking the user’s input on the website.  

The main thread is blocked whenever a Long Task is executed. Each request is considered as an individual blocking time. And, all those intervals are calculated together as total blocking time.

TBT is one of the six metrics which curates the Lighthouse report. Total Blocking Time is the total amount of time in milliseconds (ms). A long task of more than 50ms is a long task. Anything beyond that is considered the Total Blocking Time.  

Why is Total Blocking Time Important?

The total blocking time is important because it is the sum of time between the FCP and TTI. The first content loaded by the browser is the FCP, on the contrary, the moment until the website becomes satisfactorily stable is TTI. 

The tenure between the two is called the total blocking time or TBT. In your Lighthouse Score, 30% of the entire score calculation depends on Total Blocking Time. It represents the total time when your visitors were unable to access your webpage. 

This is crucial for the user experience. The TBT represents the amount of time your users were prevented from using the page. A crucial lab metric as it emphasizes whether the page is accessible or inaccessible. 

Factors Affecting Total Blocking Time

There are a number of factors that affect the Total Blocking Time. Namely, it is always the Long Task and Main thread overloadings. 

• Excessive Third party Coding
• Lengthy Javascript Execution
• Duplicate Codes

Why is it Important to Monitor Total Blocking Time

It is quite important to measure the Total Blocking Time because it is one of the leading lab metrics for measuring the total time the website was unavailable to the users. This quantifies the interactiveness of the website. Whether it was non-interactive or interactive for a longer period. 

That period of non-interactiveness is termed Total Blocking Time. Likewise, you can improve your user experience if the total blocking time is reduced and worked on. Similarly, this is something one has to work on. For example, if Lighthouse detects that your Long task ran for 80ms, then the Total Blocking time would be 30 ms. 

That is the amount of time your website was not interactive or usable. Instead, it was blocked from user input. This shows how the changes affect the interactiveness of your website. Making TBT one of the leading metrics of your Lab data. 

Tools to Monitor Total Blocking Time

To maintain the user experience one has to opt for tools and plugins to optimize the loading time. Firstly this involves a few tips and tricks which monitor the Total Blocking Time. In fact, you can always calculate the TBT based on the mentioned metrics. Here, we have some of the best tools which would be helpful for tracking Total Blocking Time. 

Score on PageSpeed Insights 

One thing we have to mention is that without Google PageSpeed Insights you can hardly go through the errors and rectification of your website. It clearly shows all the Core Web Vitals which at last affects the loading time of the website. 

Once you have rectified all those teeny-tiny things there are hardly any other things. You will have a well-performing Website which has a really low total blocking time. That is easily tracked on Google PageSpeed Insights. 

Grade on GTmetrix

A grade on GT Matrix is exactly what you need for a properly working website. A good grade like A shows that your lab data is working fine. Whereas a bad grade, like D, represents that the website has issues. 

One can easily track their Total Blocking Time on GTmetrix too. This is one of the most useful tools for getting the best results. The least loading time and a short tenure for total blocking time too. 

Special Tools and Plugins:

There are uncountable tools which help to monitor TBT. RabbitLoader is such an amazing tool which helps you track the total time your website is not loading properly. These types of plugins are quite helpful and beneficial too. 

How to Improve the Total Blocking Time?

• Minify JavaScript
• Reduce Server Response Time
• Remove Duplicate Codings
• JavaScript Caching

If you have got the measures for reducing the TBT, then you’re at the right place. This is a perfect way of reducing your Total blocking time. Get the best results on your website optimization. Get the lowest Total Blocking time on your website. 

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