Akamai, and 98 sites that take their time
Akamai is a content delivery network: infrastructure that stores copies of a site's images, scripts, stylesheets and video on servers near the visitor, so the page arrives faster than it would from one origin server. This index classifies it as a CDN rather than a tracking service, and it was seen on 98 of the 5,294 sites measured. Its distinguishing number is not weight but timing — these pages are among the slowest in the index to make their first contact with a third party.
962 ms to first contact, fifth-highest of 88
The median Akamai site does not reach any third-party host until 962 ms into the page load. Only four of the 88 companies in this index have a higher median. The earliest single site in the sample was 196 ms, so the range inside the group is real, but the centre of the distribution sits close to a full second. On a page like this, a visitor has had time to see something rendered before anything leaves for a third party.
Many requests, ordinary company count
The median site makes 63 requests, 19th of 88 — heavy. But it contacts only 9 companies, 38th of 88, with a median of 1 company classified as tracking, 57th of 88. Lots of files, comparatively few distinct destinations. That is what a CDN-served page looks like from the outside: dozens of assets pulled from a small number of hosts, rather than a long list of separate services each contributing a request or two.
Fewer of these sites show early contact
On 87 of the 98 sites — 88.8 percent — at least one company was contacted before a consent banner could have been answered. That ranks 71st of 88, meaning 70 companies in this index have a higher share. The median count of companies contacted inside that window is 5, which ranks 57th of 88, level with 22 others. And the median count contacted after the window closes is 3 — measured directly, not inferred from the other two medians. Put together: these pages start later, and a measurable amount of what they do happens after the point where a banner could have been answered.
Banners on 59 of 98
A consent banner was detected on 59 of the 98 sites — more than half, which fits a sample of large corporate estates serving EU audiences. Seen alongside: OneTrust on 38, an IAB TCF consent tool on 15, Osano, Usercentrics and Cookiebot on 2 each. Sites can carry more than one banner, so read these as separate counts. The co-presence list points the same way as the banner rate — Google on 50 percent of the sites, go-mpulse.net on 48, akstat.io on 42.9, OneTrust on 33.7, demdex.net on 16.3, Google Tag Manager and adobedtm.com on 14.3 each. That is an enterprise profile: performance monitoring, tag management, an analytics suite and a consent platform, on large corporate properties.
Twelve of the sites
The sample is exactly the kind of estate that buys a CDN contract: azure.com, bing.com, msn.com, cisco.com, meraki.com, salesforce.com, mi.com, bloomberg.com, aliexpress.com, espn.com, go.com and afternic.com. msn.com contacted 12 companies with 11 inside the window, first contact at 417 ms, behind an IAB TCF banner. mi.com contacted 10 with none inside the window and a first contact at 2,374 ms. espn.com contacted 8 companies and go.com 9, in both cases with every one of them inside the window, and both behind OneTrust. salesforce.com contacted 9 with 4 early, first contact at 1,742 ms.
| Site | Companies | Before consent | First contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| azure.com | 9 | 5 | 1275 ms |
| bing.com | 2 | 1 | 1540 ms |
| msn.com | 12 | 11 | 417 ms |
| afternic.com | 3 | 2 | 1250 ms |
| cisco.com | 10 | 7 | 744 ms |
| meraki.com | 3 | 3 | 887 ms |
| salesforce.com | 9 | 4 | 1742 ms |
| mi.com | 10 | 0 | 2374 ms |
| bloomberg.com | 9 | 5 | 845 ms |
| aliexpress.com | 9 | 6 | 1369 ms |
| espn.com | 8 | 8 | 749 ms |
| go.com | 9 | 9 | 627 ms |
| Tool | Sites |
|---|---|
| OneTrust | 38 |
| IAB TCF consent tool | 15 |
| Osano | 2 |
| Usercentrics | 2 |
| Cookiebot | 2 |
Seen on the same pages
Companies most often contacted by the same sites. Co-presence only — the crawl records what arrived, not who called whom.
- GoogleTogether on 49 of these sites
- go-mpulse.netTogether on 47 of these sites
- akstat.ioTogether on 42 of these sites
- OneTrustTogether on 33 of these sites
- demdex.netTogether on 16 of these sites
- Google Tag ManagerTogether on 14 of these sites
- adobedtm.comTogether on 14 of these sites
- Amazon CloudFrontTogether on 11 of these sites
Questions
Is Akamai counted as a tracker here?
No. The index catalogues it as a CDN and does not classify it as tracking, so it does not add to the tracker counts on the sites where it appears.
Why would a page wait almost a second before its first third-party request?
This index records the timing, not the cause. A late first contact is consistent with heavier pages whose scripts are queued behind other work, and with sites that defer third-party loading, but the measurement cannot tell those apart.
Why do 63 requests only produce 9 companies?
Requests count individual files; companies count distinct third-party operators. A CDN-served page pulls many files from few hosts, so the two numbers separate.
What does the after-window median of 3 mean?
That on the median site in this group, three companies were contacted after the point where a banner could have been answered. It is a directly measured figure, and on these pages it is high enough to say that a real part of the loading sequence happens at that stage.