Lazy Loading

Lazy loading is a performance technique where resources — most commonly images and iframes — are deferred and only loaded when they are about to enter the user's viewport, rather than being fetched all at once when the page first loads. This reduces initial page weight and can improve metrics like Time to First Byte and Largest Contentful Paint for above-the-fold content.

From an SEO standpoint, lazy loading requires careful implementation. If images critical to the page's content or Largest Contentful Paint element are lazy-loaded, they may not be discovered by Googlebot during rendering, causing them to be missing from the indexed version of the page. Google recommends using the native `loading="lazy"` attribute on images below the fold and keeping above-the-fold images eagerly loaded.