Does CSS_STYLESHEETS_LINKED affect my score?

No. It is a detection rule: it runs, appears in your report and never penalises you. "External stylesheets in use" is information about the page rather than a defect - most pages are not expected to satisfy it.

What does SPECIFICATION confidence mean?

A standard says so: HTML, WCAG, an RFC or Google's own documentation. Confidence is a declared tier rather than a per-rule number, so every rule backed by the same class of evidence carries the same weight - which is what makes the score reproducible instead of hand-tuned.

How do I check CSS_STYLESHEETS_LINKED on my own site?

Paste your URL into the box above and it runs only this rule, usually in a couple of seconds. It is also included in the CSS checker and in a full scan.

CSSLow Detection only

External stylesheets in use

CSS_STYLESHEETS_LINKED

External CSS is cacheable across pages; inlining everything means re-downloading it on every navigation.

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How this rule is weighted

Importance: 3 / 10; How much this matters relative to other rules.
Confidence: SPECIFICATION; A standard says so: HTML, WCAG, an RFC or Google's own documentation.
Severity: info; How the finding is presented when it fails.
Scoring: Excluded; Reported in the report, never penalised.

Impact is importance multiplied by the confidence tier’s weight — SPECIFICATION 1.0, RESEARCH 0.7, EMERGING 0.3, EXPERIMENTAL 0.1. Two rules backed by the same class of evidence therefore always carry the same weight, which is what makes the score reproducible rather than hand-tuned.

Questions about this rule

Does CSS_STYLESHEETS_LINKED affect my score?: No. It is a detection rule: it runs, appears in your report and never penalises you. "External stylesheets in use" is information about the page rather than a defect - most pages are not expected to satisfy it.
What does SPECIFICATION confidence mean?: A standard says so: HTML, WCAG, an RFC or Google's own documentation. Confidence is a declared tier rather than a per-rule number, so every rule backed by the same class of evidence carries the same weight - which is what makes the score reproducible instead of hand-tuned.
How do I check CSS_STYLESHEETS_LINKED on my own site?: Paste your URL into the box above and it runs only this rule, usually in a couple of seconds. It is also included in the CSS checker and in a full scan.

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