Best practices for using third-party embeds

An overview of techniques to load popular third-party embeds efficiently.

Katie Hempenius
Katie Hempenius
Leena Sohoni
Leena Sohoni

Many sites use third-party embeds to create an engaging user experience by delegating some sections of a web page to another content provider. The most common examples of third-party content embeds are video players, social-media feeds, maps, and advertisements.

Third-party content can impact the performance of a page in many ways. It can be render-blocking, contend with other critical resources for network and bandwidth, or affect the Core Web Vitals metrics. Third-party embeds may also cause layout shifts as they load. This article discusses performance best practices that you can use when loading third-party embeds, efficient loading techniques, and the Layout Shift Terminator tool that helps reduce layout shifts for popular embeds.

What is an embed

A third-party embed is any content displayed on your site that is:

  • Not authored by you
  • Served from third-party servers