When to use Eager Loading?
Eager loading is an alternative to lazy loading that can be particularly useful for websites with limited resources, such as blogs or personal sites that predominantly feature text content with a few images or videos. By utilizing eager loading, page load times can be optimized and improved, resulting in faster loading times for visitors.
Lazy Loading vs. Eager Loading: The Details
Lazy Loading and Eager Loading are two distinct loading strategies, and it's important to understand the difference between them. Consider this when choosing which option to use for your website.
Lazy Loading
Loads non-critical resources and iframe components only as they enter the viewport to speed up page loading and conserve bandwidth
Optimizes content delivery by reducing load times and bandwidth requirements
Improves the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) score, which measures how fast the largest element or resource on a web page loads
Particularly useful when a page contains heavy resources, such as videos, images, GIFs, and iframes
Used by many websites with infinite scroll to load additional content only when the user scrolls to the bottom of the page (below the fold)
Eager Loading
Loads all resources, including those that are not immediately needed, at once
Useful when working with small resources, as it can greatly improve the page load times
Helps achieve consistency throughout the application
This can result in slower load times and higher bandwidth and resource utilization
Used as the default loading strategy in most websites with less amount of resources like a blog page.
Best Practices for Implementing a Loading Strategy
To choose the strategy that will best meet the requirements of your application, you must weigh several criteria while deciding between lazy loading and eager loading. Here are some best practices to remember:
When working with large and critical resources, it is advisable to use lazy loading. This technique allows you to load resources as needed, reducing initial load times and memory bandwidth.
Start with eager loading by default: When dealing with smaller resources, it's generally a good idea to start with eager loading as the default technique. This can speed up load times, and lower the possibility of performance problems.
Be mindful of performance trade-offs: It's important to remember the performance trade-offs when employing any loading approach. Lazy loading can lead to longer response times when fresh data is required, whereas eager loading might cause slower initial load times and increased memory use. To meet the needs of your particular application, be sure to weigh the advantages and disadvantages.
SEO is important. Website loading speed is a key factor for ranking a website in search engine results. Google and other search engines consider a website that loads faster to have a better user experience, which is more likely to rank higher in search engine results. Additionally, websites that load slowly and take a long time to display their content may cause users to leave the site quickly, which can negatively impact its SEO. Therefore, optimizing your website's loading speed can help improve its SEO and increase its visibility in search engine results.