Decreasing download time...

[Tomness]

Recently my website was reviewed and it was mentioned that it was slow downloading. I don't know if this is my servers fault or mine. My server is 4 hops away from me (West Midlands), so download time should not be to bad for any located in the UK, right? Or wrong?

Is it my images? I don't know - I tend to save my images as Jpg or gif files... Does anyone have any suggestions on how to speed up website loading times dramaticaly? Or at least enough to make a difference.

[limbo]

Saving your files as JPEG's and GIF's won't actually reduce their file size unless you to optimise them. Photoshop, GIMP, Fireworks etc all have good optimising features - the more you optimise and image the poorer the quality so it's best done by eye.

As a rule of thumb I try to keep all my pages under 15kb (lower if possible). Unless there are some worthwhile illustrations or photo's that are integral to the content.

CSS will reduce code bloat and an external style sheet only need be downloaded once so saves bandwidth.

Other tricks include; server side includes, optional low graphics version, tableless design, repeat imaging and post design code bloat reduction (especially if you design with wysiwyg).

<added> Of course all of this is dependant on the speed of your users connection - 56k Dial Up will be slow when compared with Broadband 512k for example. Other factors that could slow it down could be badly functioning databases, host problems, network provider problems, users PC etc

Ideally you should test on the lowest common denominator - we have a test box on 56k Dial up using IE5</added>

[Tomness]

I do optimise my images with photoshop, and occasionaly fireworks... It might, I say might - be my server, because all my pages around 10kb in size... However, I have started to learn CSS and eventualy intend to make my site strongly based around it. But I am still getting to grips with it.

Thank you for your help. =)

[jdkuehne]

I run my pages and graphics through an optimizer like SpaceAgent which removes all unnecessary newlines, whitespace, etc. from the html code and also gets rid of all comments/thumbnails/general bloat in jpegs & gifs.

This makes a small but noticable speed increase. I've had website reviewers comment on how fast the site loaded.

jdkuehne

[ckarg]

You can use various tools. Some check the page size (such as the FireFox WebDeveloper toolbar), and this can give you an idea if there's a size problem. Other tools actually try a download of the entire page, and give you time stats. I've hacked a little perl script to do the latter.

Two factors affect perceived speed: size of download, and latency.

The size, e.g. for images, is an obvious issue, and you should always go for the lowest size image that still looks good.

Latency becomes a significant factor if your page contains lots of little images. With poor server/browser settings, each image could require a new HTTP transaction to fetch.

In my experience, the biggest slowdown factor comes from tracker code. The worst case requires:
1. a DNS lookup to load a JavaScript applet.
2. GET the applet
3. execute the applet, often resulting in an additional GET, possibly with another DNS lookup

[AlexK]

Change your .GIFs to .PNGs.

I use Paint Shop Pro, and the optimiser will interactively show size-drops (which can be dramatic) while reducing the palette to the actual number of colours employed, yet with no quality loss whatsoever. PNG is simply a better format than GIF, and as widely supported.

[javahava]

use mod_gzip (ask your host to enable) or ob_gzhandler in your code.

[Dexie]

Hi Limbo,

I found your post really interesting, and I understood all of it except the part about

"Other tricks include; server side includes"

How does that work please?

Dexie

[limbo]

Dexie

A server side include [google.com] (SSI) is a method of serving consistent info to your users. For example; you may have navigation and a footer that remains the same on every page - you can use a SSI to serve this information to your users via a server request. this request references just one file that you can keep easy tabs on - so if you want to change you site nav - do it once and the whole site updates - moy useful non? (and easier on the ol' cache too ;) )

[Dexie]

Many thanks for the info, much appreciated. ;-)

[blackcastle]

try www.sitereportcard.com it will tell you how big your images are and even reduce them for you...

[Heartlander]

Your page itself may be 10kb, but the one image in the header is 34kb.
That's rather large, in my opinion.

I recently coded in a javascript driven latest news box that draws from a specific forum on my site.
You want to talk about a page coming to a screeching halt? LOL

[kamakaze]

This brings up an interesting discussion. I remember back in the day when the internet was pretty much just plain text and static html pages and now days its almost impossible to find a site that doesn't use flash or lot of flashy graphics. I wonder when broadband internet will be standard like running water. :-)