I’ve noticed that the user avatar images from Tripadvisor reviews are are unnecessarily large, impacting performance–particularly on mobile. They are rendered at 40x40px, but the actual intrinsic size of the images are 1,200x1,200px. For comparison, Google review avatars have a more reasonable intrinsic size of 240x240px.
On Tripadvisor’s site, the intrinsic size of their avatars is 100x100px. So it looks like smaller options exist. (Of course, just because Tripadvisor has smaller images for their own use doesn’t necessarily mean they make them available to you.)
I have no idea what Tripadvisor makes available to you through their API. If you do have the ability to use a smaller avatar image, it would improve performance with no visual impact. Just thought I’d throw this idea out there in case it is possible.
Unfortunately, our widgets don’t automatically compress/optimize the images you add to them, please accept my apologies for that!
However, the good news is that we have a way of improving the loading time of the widget, so you are very welcome to reinstall the widget using lazy loading.
Thanks for the response. I am already using lazy loading for the widget.
Just to be sure there wasn’t a miscommunication, I wasn’t asking whether you could compress or optimize the Tripadvisor avatar images. I was asking whether it was possible for you to use the existing smaller version of the images that Tripadvisor already has on their server.
If Tripadvisor gives you sufficient info and allows it, you could simply point the image src for the review in your widget to that existing smaller image. It’s entirely possible that Tripadvisor doesn’t provide you the information or doesn’t authorize you to do that.
Unfortunately, there is no option to replace the large image with the smaller version because we receive the larger version from the source and it can’t be changed. I am really sorry about it!
If any other questions come up or any assistance is needed, please let us know. We’ll gladly help!
