SharePoint Online publishing pages take longer than expected to load

Problem

Consider the following scenario:

  • You have a SharePoint Online publishing page that was created by using either the Publishing Portal or Enterprise Wiki template.

  • When you browse to a publishing page, the page takes longer than expected to load.

Solution

To resolve this problem use the Term Store Management tool to remove unnecessary pages from the navigation menu. To do this, follow these steps:

Browse to the affected SharePoint Online site collection.

  1. Click the gear icon for the Settings menu, and then click Site settings.

  2. In the Site Administration section, click Term store management.

  3. In the TAXONOMY TERM STORE section, expand the taxonomy for Site Collection, and then expand the Site Navigation section.

  4. Click the affected page that you want to remove navigation for, and then click the NAVIGATION tab.

  5. Clear the Show in Global Navigation Menu and Show in Current Navigation Menu check boxes, and then click Save.

    Screenshot of the Navigation tab. The Show in Global Navigation Menu and Show in Current Navigation Menu boxes are unchecked.

Note

You may also use the EDIT LINKS feature on the page to remove the navigation links. For more information, go to Customize the navigation on your team site.

You can also clear the setting to add new pages to navigation automatically from the Navigation Settings page. This prevents the issue from recurring in the future. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Browse to the affected SharePoint Online site collection.

  2. Click the gear icon for the Settings menu, and then click Site settings.

  3. In the Site Administration section, click Navigation.

  4. In the Managed Navigation: Default Page Settings section, clear the Add new pages to navigation automatically option, and then click OK.

More information

This issue may occur if you have many Publishing Pages in your Pages Library. By default, new Publishing Pages are added to the Pages Library, and user permissions for all pages in the Pages Library are validated for the navigation menu when a page loads. The page may be performing many unnecessary security checks for pages that you don't have to include on the navigation menu.

Still need help? Go to SharePoint Community.