Site teardown · Pbfenergy

Pbfenergy: a phone-and-desktop teardown

We loaded https://pbfenergy.com 4 times on a simulated iPhone and 2 more on a 1366px desktop, and wrote down what a real visitor would see on each. No login, no insider access, no Harvv pixel needed. Here is what repeated visits already show, sorted by how we know it.

June 29, 2026·External scan·4 mobile + 2 desktop loads · no pixel data·Download as PDF

TL;DRWhat jumped out

Of everything we found on this scan, this is the one to start with: Tiny buttons are hard to tap on mobile. 26 of 33 tappable items on this page come in below 44×44 pixels, the minimum size Apple and Google recommend for reliable tapping, and the same ones came up small on every test load. When visitors can't hit what they expect to, they get frustrated and many of them leave instead of trying again.

Below: what's already working, every finding ranked by impact and tagged with the screen it affects, the speed numbers on phone and desktop, and a checklist of what to fix first.

00What's already working

Start here so the problems below are in context. These held up across the test loads:

  • Speed is good. The main content paints in about 0.3s in our test loads, inside Google's 2.5s "good" threshold. Real networks are slower, but the page itself is not heavy.
  • Light page weight. The page is about 0.7 MB across 68 requests. That keeps it quick on mobile data and cheap to load repeatedly.
  • No JavaScript errors on load. Nothing threw a script error across the test loads, so buttons and tracking are not silently breaking mid-session.
  • Layout holds on phone and desktop. Nothing spilled past the edge at either 390px (phone) or 1366px (desktop), so the structure is responsive.

This is one of several oil refiner sites we tore down the same way. The same friction repeats on Valero, and we pulled the cross-site pattern together in the oil-refiner web benchmark.

01Findings, ranked by what hurts conversion most

SeverityFindingHow we know
HighTiny buttons are hard to tap on mobileMobileAccessibility (WCAG)Conversion
26 of 33 tappable items on this page come in below 44×44 pixels, the minimum size Apple and Google recommend for reliable tapping, and the same ones came up small on every test load. When visitors can't hit what they expect to, they get frustrated and many of them leave instead of trying again.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
HighGoogle Analytics tracking brokenBoth
The Google Analytics request failed to complete on every one of the 4 test loads. If real visitors hit the same failure, GA is missing those visits and the dashboard has no way to flag it. Conversion numbers, audience counts, and channel attribution are all undercounting. Worth checking the tag loading order and any consent banner that might be blocking the request.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
High5 potential dead-click targetsBothConversionAccessibility (WCAG)Tracking
Elements styled like buttons but with no anchor, no <button> wrapper, no role="button", and no click attribute. Real visitors tap these expecting something to happen, then leave. Examples on this page: "Click here" (div.elementor-element), "Click here" (div.elementor-button-wrapper), "Click here" (div.elementor-element).
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
High13 interactive elements have no stable, accessible identityBothAccessibility (WCAG)Tracking
These elements are clicked like buttons but expose no accessible name, or are a plain div/span used as a control with no role. Assistive tech announces only a role (or nothing), and analytics and heatmaps have no human-readable label or stable selector to bind the click to, so the click is both inaccessible and untrackable, and any redesign silently breaks click aggregation. Give each one a real <button>/<a>, an aria-label, and a stable id or data-attribute.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
HighBroken internal linksBothSEOConversion
1 internal link target returned an error (404/410/5xx) or did not respond. Broken links waste crawl budget, frustrate visitors, and leak ranking signal. (Found across a sample of 8 pages from your sitemap, a partial crawl rather than your full site.)
The exact examples we found:
  • https://www.pbfenergy.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection (404)
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowSearch-result title is leaving room on the tableBothSEO
Google gives you about 60 characters of headline space in search results. This page is using 17. Adding the value proposition or a relevant keyword gives someone one more reason to click.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowLinks to this page will look bare when sharedBoth
The page is missing its Open Graph image, so when someone shares it on Facebook, LinkedIn, iMessage, or Slack the preview has no image. A flat grey link gets far fewer clicks than one with an image and headline.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
Low3 generic CTA links/buttons ("Click here", "Learn more", "Submit")BothAccessibility (WCAG)Conversion
Screen-reader users hear a list of "click here, click here, learn more" with no context. Sighted users learn nothing about where the link goes from the label alone. Rewrite each CTA to describe the destination ("See pricing", "Read the case study").
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowNo advertising pixel detectedBothTracking
Analytics is present but no Meta/Google/TikTok ad pixel was found. If you run paid ads, conversion tracking should be installed before the next campaign so the platforms can optimize toward buyers, not clicks.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowNo email capture or newsletter detectedBothConversion
No email-marketing tag (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, etc.) was found. Email capture plus a welcome and abandoned-cart flow is consistently the highest-ROI addition for a small store, and it is owned audience you keep regardless of ad costs.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowNo visible contact details (email or phone)BothConversion
The page exposes no email or phone link. For higher-value or trust-sensitive purchases, a clear way to reach a human reduces hesitation. Add an email or phone link in the header or footer.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowUnused JavaScript is being downloadedBothPerformance
Code that never runs on this page still costs download and parse time on every visit. Splitting or removing it speeds up load. Lighthouse measured: Est savings of 146 KiB.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowUnused CSS is being downloadedBothPerformance
Style rules that this page never uses still block rendering while they download. Trimming them frees the paint path. Lighthouse measured: Est savings of 146 KiB.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowImages are missing alt textBothAccessibility (WCAG)SEO
Screen readers skip or read the filename of images without alt text, and search engines lose the context. Describe content images; mark decorative ones alt="".
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowHeadings skip levelsBothAccessibility (WCAG)
Jumping from an H1 straight to an H4 breaks the document outline that screen readers and search engines rely on.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT
LowNo llms.txt fileBothSEO
No /llms.txt. This emerging standard gives AI search engines a clean, structured map of your most important content, improving how they understand and cite your site.
paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT

Accessibility findings are automated checks against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and 2.2. They flag potential barriers and legal risk, not a certification or a determination of compliance with the ADA, Section 508, or EN 301 549. Automated testing catches only a subset of issues; a full conformance review needs manual and assistive-technology testing by a qualified reviewer.

From finding to fix
Want the fix, not just the finding?
Install Harvv and we turn each issue above into a ready-to-paste prompt for your AI coding assistant. Drop it into Cursor, Claude, or Copilot and the diagnosis becomes a concrete code change, written against this exact page.
Get the fix prompts

"How we know": unlabeled = a deterministic fact, identical on every load (e.g. element sizes). Most findings are this kind, so we only mark the exceptions: median across loads = a noisy lab metric, reported as a median. real-user field data = Google CrUX, actual Chrome visitors.

Structural and AI-search checks crawl up to 8 pages from your sitemap (a sample, not your full site). "Broken" means a link returned 404, 410, or 5xx, or did not respond; access-controlled pages (401, 403) are not counted.

02Performance: phone, desktop, and real visitors

MetricMobileDesktopRead
TTFB (lab median)134 ms128 msLab
FCP (lab median)260 ms254 msLab
LCP (lab median)282 ms282 msGood
Page weight (median)0.7 MB0.7 MBOK

Google Lighthouse (lab): Performance 63 mobile / 98 desktop, SEO 85, Accessibility 84, Best Practices 100.

Lab numbers are from a headless mobile browser on an unthrottled connection: treat them as a floor, not a typical experience. Add a Google API key to light up real-user field data (CrUX) and Lighthouse scores.

03Tiny buttons are hard to tap on mobile

26 of 33 tappable items on this page come in below 44×44 pixels, the size Apple and Google both recommend for reliable tapping on a phone. The same ones came up small on every one of the 4 test loads, so this is the page itself, not a fluke.

When customers can't tap what they expect to, they get frustrated and many of them leave. They don't file a bug. They don't try again. They just leave. A desktop dashboard can't see this because it's the difference between a thumb and a cursor.

The buttons measuring below the minimum on this scan:

  • a 1x1 "Skip to content"
  • div 33x33 "Menu Toggle"
  • button 73x40 "Submit"
  • a 350x31 "About Us"
  • a 46x24 "Safety"
  • a 133x24 "Management Team"
  • a 130x24 "Board of Directors"
  • a 62x31 "Careers"

The fix is CSS-only on most sites: add padding around the icon (don't just change the icon size) so the actual tap area is at least 44×44 pixels. No redesign, no new assets.

04Technical SEO & structured data

CheckResult
TitleHome - PBF Energy (17 chars)
Meta description158 chars
H11 on page
CanonicalPresent
Structured data (JSON-LD)1 block(s)
Open GraphIncomplete

05The fix checklist

Everything to fix, priority first, each tagged with the screen it affects and a rough effort. Work top to bottom.

  1. Tiny buttons are hard to tap on mobileMobileCSS only
  2. Google Analytics tracking brokenBothDev afternoon
  3. 5 potential dead-click targetsBothCSS only
  4. 13 interactive elements have no stable, accessible identityBothDev afternoon
  5. Broken internal linksBothVaries
  6. Search-result title is leaving room on the tableBoth1 line
  7. Links to this page will look bare when sharedBothVaries
  8. 3 generic CTA links/buttons ("Click here", "Learn more", "Submit")BothVaries
  9. No advertising pixel detectedBothDev afternoon
  10. No email capture or newsletter detectedBothVaries
  11. No visible contact details (email or phone)BothVaries
  12. Unused JavaScript is being downloadedBothVaries
  13. Unused CSS is being downloadedBothVaries
  14. Images are missing alt textBothVaries
  15. Headings skip levelsBothVaries
  16. No llms.txt fileBothVaries

Effort is a rough read from the outside: "CSS only" means no new assets or backend work, "1 line" means a single tag, "Dev afternoon" means a developer needs to touch tracking or scripts.

06What this report cannot tell you

Everything above is from the outside, looking at the page on a simulated phone and desktop. The questions that actually decide revenue need real visitors. Install the Harvv pixel (one script tag, 16 KB, zero personal data, no engineering project) and within about 72 hours you'd know which buttons real customers tapped and missed, how often Google Analytics is missing visits, and exactly where mobile shoppers stalled and left. This report shows you where to look. The pixel shows you how often it happens, and to whom.

What to do next
See this same depth on your real visitors, every day.

Drop the Harvv pixel on pbfenergy.com and we turn this one-off scan into ongoing measured behavior: which taps miss, where sessions stall, and the real drop rates. Free to start, no card needed.

Add the pixel free

07How we did this, and what it can't prove

  • 4 mobile + 2 desktop loads of one URL from headless Chrome (iPhone viewport at 390px, desktop at 1366px), June 29, 2026. Enough loads to separate real defects from random noise, not a full-site crawl.
  • Lab numbers, not real-user numbers (no field data was available for this run). Real devices on real networks run slower.
  • Friction is inferred, not counted. We can prove a button is small. We can't, from the outside, count how often it causes a missed tap. That requires the pixel on a live page.

Prepared by Harvv. Last updated June 29, 2026.

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See all site teardowns →  ·  Read the oil-refiner web benchmark →

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