Page builders are one of the most polarising topics in technical SEO. On one side, they empower marketers to ship landing pages without waiting for development. On the other, they are blamed for bloated HTML, slow performance, and fragile templates that are almost impossible to maintain.
The real question is not whether page builders are “good” or “bad.” It is how they compare to clean, hand-crafted HTML in terms of DOM complexity and what that means for performance and SEO. If you can quantify that difference with clear metrics, you can make better decisions about when page builders are acceptable and when you need a more disciplined approach.
In this article, we will walk through a practical DOM complexity benchmark between page builder templates and clean HTML templates. We will look at how they differ across key metrics, how that affects Core Web Vitals, and how you can use tools like the Seories HTML Bloat Analyzer to keep your markup under control even when you cannot abandon page builders completely.
Why Page Builders Get Blamed for Slow Sites
Page builders exist to solve a real problem: the need to move fast. They hide HTML, CSS, and JavaScript behind a visual interface and drag-and-drop components. That convenience, however, comes with structural trade-offs.
Most page builders:
Generate deeply nested container hierarchies to support any layout a user might want
Inject inline styles at block level instead of relying on a minimal, shared stylesheet
Add wrapper elements, data attributes, and helper classes for editor controls, animations, and responsive behavior
None of this is inherently evil, but it does increase DOM complexity by default. Over time, as more sections, widgets, and experiments are added, the DOM quietly grows into a dense, multi-layered tree.
The problem is not that page builders exist. It is that teams often treat them as a black box and never look at the HTML they produce. Without measurement and governance, bloat accumulates until performance and Core Web Vitals start to suffer, especially on mobile and low-end devices.
Clean HTML templates, by contrast, usually start from explicit design and development decisions. A front-end engineer builds just enough markup to support the required layout and behavior, and over-engineering is easier to spot. That tends to result in smaller, flatter DOMs with fewer surprises.
Under the hood, most of these problems come back to one thing: HTML bloat and unnecessary DOM complexity. If you want a broader primer on that topic, we have a separate deep-dive on HTML bloat as a technical SEO issue.
How We Measured DOM Complexity
Before you can compare page builders and clean templates, you need a consistent way to measure DOM complexity. Otherwise the conversation never gets past vague impressions.
Test Setup and Tooling
A practical benchmark does not require a full lab with hundreds of test cases. You simply need a set of representative pages and a tool that can extract meaningful DOM metrics.
A typical DOM complexity benchmark might include:
A few landing pages built with a popular page builder
Matching landing pages built with clean HTML templates
A handful of blog posts created in both environments
One or two e-commerce product pages or lead generation forms built in each style
Each URL is then analyzed with a DOM analysis tool such as the Seories HTML Bloat Analyzer. The tool fetches the HTML, parses the DOM, and calculates metrics like total nodes, maximum depth, maximum children per node, inline styles, and hidden nodes.
By using the same tool and methodology for both page builder and clean templates, you can compare the results directly without worrying about differences in how the data was collected.
Metrics Collected
For this kind of comparison, the most useful DOM complexity metrics are:
Total DOM nodes: the total count of elements in the DOM tree
Maximum DOM depth: the distance from the root element to the deepest node
Maximum children per node: the highest number of direct children any single node has
Inline styles and inline scripts: counts or ratios of inline attributes that signal generated markup
Hidden nodes: the number or percentage of nodes that are off-canvas or not initially visible
These metrics do not tell you everything, but they provide a solid foundation for understanding how heavy a template is and where the weight comes from.
Benchmark Results: Page Builders vs Custom Templates
The exact numbers will depend on the platform, theme, and implementation, but certain patterns appear repeatedly across projects when you compare page builder templates with clean templates.
Landing Pages
Landing pages built with page builders tend to:
Use many nested containers to support flexible drag-and-drop layouts
Include multiple hero sections, overlapping elements, and decorative wrappers
Add blocks for animations, scroll effects, and editor-only controls
In DOM terms, this typically shows up as:
Total DOM nodes significantly higher than their clean counterparts
More extreme maximum depth due to nested sections, columns, and inner containers
Higher counts of inline styles used to position and style elements directly from the editor
Clean HTML landing pages, on the other hand, often:
Use fewer top-level sections and more semantic elements
Rely on shared CSS classes rather than inline styles
Limit decorative wrappers to cases where they are genuinely needed
As a result, they usually have fewer nodes, lower depth, and more predictable structure.
Blog Posts
Blog posts are an interesting case because the content itself tends to be simple: headings, paragraphs, lists, and images. When a page builder is used to create blog layouts, you often end up with:
Each paragraph or block wrapped in multiple divs for padding, margins, and editor behavior
Image blocks that include extra wrappers, overlays, and drag handles
Repeated structures for global elements like author boxes and related posts widgets
The DOM complexity might not be as extreme as on landing pages, but it is still noticeably higher than a plain template that renders clean HTML for core article content.
Custom blog templates typically render the article body using semantic tags with minimal wrapping, keeping DOM size and depth low and making it easier for both users and crawlers to focus on the main content.
E-commerce Product Pages
E-commerce product pages can be complex regardless of the approach, because they include:
Image galleries
Variants and options
Pricing blocks and promotions
Reviews, recommendations, and related products
When built with a page builder, these components often get layered on top of one another with generic containers, tab systems, and duplicated markup for mobile and desktop variants. The result is a large number of nodes and a significant proportion of hidden elements.
Clean HTML implementations usually still have a sizable DOM, but because the structure is designed manually, there are more opportunities to reuse components, avoid duplication, and limit nesting. That can make a meaningful difference in performance and maintainability over time.
Performance and Core Web Vitals Impact
DOM complexity is not just an aesthetic concern; it has practical consequences for performance and Core Web Vitals.
A larger, deeper DOM means:
More time spent parsing HTML and constructing the DOM tree
More expensive style and layout calculations, especially during interactions
More JavaScript work if scripts traverse or manipulate the DOM
This affects metrics such as:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): large, complex structures can delay when key elements are painted
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): interactions that trigger layout or style recalculation on a large tree can feel sluggish
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): deeply nested or overly dynamic structures can increase the risk of unstable layouts
In benchmarks, page builder pages often require more CPU and memory to reach an interactive state, especially on mobile devices. Clean templates are not automatically fast, but they have an easier path to good Core Web Vitals because there is less structural overhead to fight against.
When Page Builders Are “Good Enough” (and When They Are Not)
Despite their structural drawbacks, page builders are not always a bad choice. The key is to understand where they fit.
Page builders can be “good enough” when:
The page is low to medium impact in terms of organic revenue or strategic value
The marketing team needs to test variations quickly and frequently
You have reasonable guardrails in place to avoid extreme bloat (limited sections, sensible use of components)
In these scenarios, the trade-off between DOM cleanliness and speed of iteration may be acceptable, especially if you still monitor performance and DOM metrics.
However, page builders are often the wrong choice when:
The template powers a large portion of your organic traffic or revenue (for example, core category pages or key landing pages)
The page is already complex because of product requirements (e-commerce, configurators, applications)
You have strict performance targets or Core Web Vitals thresholds that are hard to meet even with clean markup
In those cases, a custom template with disciplined HTML and CSS will give you more control and better long-term maintainability.
Practical Recommendations for Teams Stuck with Page Builders
In many organisations, completely abandoning page builders is not an option. The more realistic path is to put structure and governance around how they are used.
Practical steps include:
Define a limited set of approved layouts
Restrict the number of sections, widgets, and nesting levels that can be used on key templates. Treat this as a design system rather than a free-for-all.Standardise components
Encourage reuse of a small number of well-tested components instead of allowing every editor to build new variations from scratch.Audit and clean legacy pages
Use a DOM analysis tool to find the heaviest pages, then remove duplicate sections, old test variants, and hidden blocks that no longer serve a purpose.Separate global elements from page builder content
Where possible, render headers, footers, and critical navigation outside the page builder’s control to avoid duplication and excessive nesting.
These changes do not turn a page builder into a hand-crafted template, but they can significantly reduce the worst forms of bloat and extend the life of your existing setup.
How to Monitor DOM Complexity Over Time as You Edit Content
Whether you rely on page builders, custom templates, or a mix of both, DOM complexity should be monitored continuously rather than checked once and forgotten.
A simple monitoring workflow looks like this:
Select key templates
Choose a small set of URLs that represent your most important templates: homepage, one or two core categories, a high-traffic product page, and a flagship content piece.Establish a baseline
Run each URL through the Seories HTML Bloat Analyzer to capture initial metrics for total nodes, depth, children per node, inline styles, and hidden nodes.Set thresholds or budgets
Agree on acceptable ranges for these metrics. For example, you might set a soft budget of 2,000 nodes for standard pages and lower depth limits for content-heavy templates.Re-run after major changes
When you deploy new sections, redesign templates, or add significant functionality, re-run the affected URLs through the analyzer and compare them to the baseline.Alert on regressions
If DOM metrics spike suddenly for a key template, treat that as a regression and investigate which component or change caused the increase.
By integrating DOM checks into your content and deployment workflows, you make sure that new bloat is detected early and addressed before it spreads across your site.
If you want to quantify the gap between your page builder layouts and your custom templates, plug both URLs into the Seories HTML Bloat Analyzer and compare the DOM size, depth, and hidden node ratios side by side.
Conclusion: It Is Not Just the Tool, It Is the Governance
Page builders and clean HTML templates are not just different technical choices; they represent different philosophies about how pages are created and maintained. Page builders prioritise speed and flexibility for non-developers, often at the cost of DOM complexity. Clean templates prioritise control and efficiency, but require more discipline and developer involvement.
The goal is not to choose one forever and demonise the other. It is to understand, with data, how each approach affects your DOM and what that implies for performance and technical SEO.
By running a practical DOM complexity benchmark, using tools like the Seories HTML Bloat Analyzer, and putting basic governance in place, you can:
Quantify the real cost of page builders on your site
Decide where they are acceptable and where you need custom templates
Keep DOM complexity under control as your site evolves
If you are unsure where to start, pick one high-value template built with a page builder and one similar template built with clean HTML. Analyze both, compare the metrics, and use that comparison to guide your next technical SEO and front-end decisions.
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Mahmut Orkun Koksalan writes on Technical SEO, search systems, and startup-oriented digital strategy, with an analytical focus on how technical structures influence visibility and scale.