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In that case (as others have stated) they should really precise what do they mean by small. I am convinced that a single network call (preceded by JavaScript overhead) dwarfs any reasonable amount of CSS code you could put in a single HTML file.

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It will, but it's still a net win because Google's not actually optimizing for time to load. They're optimizing for time to usability. Moving all of the non-essential CSS out of the head and into a post-load request increases the total request time but decreases the time until the user can begin interacting with the page.

It's still drastic overkill for almost everyone except Google, but it does make sense for their use case.

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