Best Practices : Be aware of the page weight

May 7th, 2008 by Nikhil

I have saved this article ages back, so Sorry! I dont remember the source … but it seemed useful , for us who have to be aware about the audience for whom we develop the site for … so here i is

Page weight can be used to determine the download time for a given page on a variety of Internet connection speeds. By way of example, the following table shows the download times for three different pages at a number of popular connection speeds.

Page Weight Download Times

Connection Speed

20 Kb Page

40 Kb Page

100 Kb Page

14.4 Kbps

12 sec

25 sec

62 sec

28.8 Kbps

6 sec

12 sec

31 sec

33.3 Kbps

5 sec

10 sec

26 sec

56 Kbps (V.90)

2 sec

5 sec

13 sec

64 Kbps (ISDN)

2 sec

4 sec

12 sec

128 Kbps (DSL/Cable)

1 sec

2 sec

6 sec

256 Kbps (DSL/Cable)

<1 sec

1 sec

3 sec

Benefits of reducing page weight?

The positive impact of reducing page weight benefits both website owners and consumers. Potential benefits include:

  1. Pages load faster. The most obvious impact of reducing page weight is that your website’s pages will load faster for visitors, regardless of their connection speed.
  2. Lower page load times create more comfortable visitors. Visitors are less likely to become frustrated and go elsewhere if your pages load quickly. On the other hand, slow-loading pages are one of the surest ways to lose visitors and potential customers.
  3. Faster load-times will contribute to increased conversion. More visitors will stay on your site longer. More of them will end up making purchases, signing up for your newsletter, or book-marking your site.
  4. Your brand perception will be enhanced. Returning customers and first-time visitors alike will be more inclined to describe your site (and business) as “professional” if your pages load quickly.
  5. Pages with clean, solid code will often be indexed more effectively by natural search engines.
  6. Pages optimized for weight can actually save bandwidth charges on high-traffic sites. 100,000 pages each weighing 150 Kb will require twice as much bandwidth from your ISP than 100,000 pages each weight 75 Kb. For ISPs that charge for bandwidth used or for overages, this reduction can create significant savings on bandwidth charges.

Consider the following data, published in a report

Visitor Abandonment

Page Load Time

Percent of Users
Continuing to Wait

10 seconds

84%

15 seconds

51%

20 seconds

26%

30 seconds

5%


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