Third-Party Images on your Shopify Page & Impact on Speed
Bhavesha & Tilak | Dec 31, 2022 | 5 min read
Overview
The following are some points for improving the site speed that is affected by third-party images-
- 1. The performance of a website can be significantly affected by third-party images.
- 2. Page performance can be affected by slow server response times, slow DNS lookups, Location of third-party servers, and third-party related network aspects.
- 3. Decision between third-party hosted images VS images hosted on your Shopify can be one of the simple but critical factors for your site speed
The content below derives from our experience executing over 50+ speed optimization projects on Shopify websites. We have tried explaining the impact of third-party images and solutions to minimize the impact on site speed due to these images.
Identification of Tools for Optimizing Third-Party Images/Block
- Google Pagespeed insights (Recommended)
- GTMetrix
- Google Lighthouse

How Does Third-Party Image Affect Page Performance?
Using third-party images on your Shopify store can affect the speed of your site in a few different ways.
1. Increased Page Load Time
- No control over image format
- No Control over image size
- There is no control over responsive images if it comes with HTML blocks
- Additional DNS lookup
- No control over setting expires header
- Might be delivered from a distantly located server
- Slow servers can add to image load time
2. Increased Bandwidth Usage
- No control over image format image size
- No control over setting expires header
How to Reduce the Impact of Third-Party Images?
There are a few things you can do to minimize the impact of third-party images/code on website speed:
1. Optimize third-party images that come from social media/applications
- You need to understand the different options available to the third party (like social media) for images.
- While uploading images on Social Media and using that feed for your website, consider the impact of the image payload on your website while uploading on Social Media.
- If these images are not changed frequently then we recommend uploading these images on shopify rather than using it from the social media feed. ensure that your images are high-quality and of efficient size, or redesign your website section so that third-party images can be used more effectively.
2. Optimize third-party images/block
- There is no scope for third-party images present so we do not have control over third-party images.
- Rather than using HTML sections from social media/ third-party websites, fetch them (if legal and with no copyright infringements) and use your own defined HTML and CSS. By using your own HTML CSS, you will be able to apply lazy loading and picture tags simultaneously. as a result, the image payload for the above fold will be reduced.
Conclusion
Overall, it’s important to be mindful of the impact that third-party images can have on the speed of your Shopify store and to take steps to optimize them as needed to ensure the best user experience.
*May require design and functionality changes
#Blog Pages are not part of Optimization Scope