Lazy loading images: Crawl Audit check 100

Short answer: loading="lazy" tells the browser not to download an image until the visitor scrolls near it, so the first screen loads faster. Use it on images further down the page, never on the main image at the top. Check 100 passes when any image on the page is lazy-loaded, and warns when a page with more than two images has none.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Pass: two images or fewer, or at least one image with loading="lazy".
• Warning: three or more images, none lazy.

It doesn't check the opposite mistake: a lazy-loaded image at the top of the page. That one slows your Largest Contentful Paint (check 72), so check your hero image yourself.

What the sources say

• MDN: lazy "Defers loading the image until it reaches a calculated distance from the viewport, as defined by the browser."
• web.dev: "Don't lazy-load images that are likely to be in-viewport when the page loads, especially LCP images." And: "Browser-level image lazy loading is well supported across all the major browsers".
• Google Search lists "Browser built-in lazy-loading for images and iframes" as a method it supports, and adds: "Don't add lazy-loading to content that is likely to be immediately visible when a user opens a page."

<img src="/team-photo.webp" width="800" height="533" loading="lazy" alt="Our team at work">

On devmarde.com

All seven images on our homepage were lazy-loaded on 3 October. They're small product icons, not the main content, and our LCP was 1.5 seconds on mobile, so the top of the page isn't waiting on them.

On your platform

• WordPress: lazy-loads images by default since 5.5 (only images with both width and height). Since 6.3 it marks the likely LCP image fetchpriority="high" and never lazy-loads it.
• Wix: lazy loading is built in, and "it can't be turned off."
• Next.js: next/image lazy-loads by default. Switch that off for the hero image.
• Shopify and Squarespace: check what your theme does. The first image on the page shouldn't have it.

Sources

• MDN, <img>: The Image Embed element, checked 3 October 2026.
• web.dev, Browser-level image lazy loading (updated 13 August 2024).
• Google Search Central, Fix lazy-loaded content (updated 10 December 2025).
• WordPress, Lazy-loading images in 5.5 and Image performance enhancements in 6.3.