How can i speed up loading my website?

Hello,

First of all, greetings to everybody again after some time without posting in the forums. Hope everything's ok here. At this moment i don't have enough time to be in AO posting (i have been just looking around from time to time) but now i have a problem and i need some help.

I have redesigned a website at www.flagmag.com but it takes too much to load the main page. I have tried reducing the size and quality of the images and from lasting 167 seconds to load the main page i took it to 135 seconds but is still a lot. Other important sites like nfl.com, nhl.com, nba.com or espn.com last between 65 and 100 seconds to load. My question is if there is another way to reduce even more the time the main page takes to load. What can i do?

Thanks,

DKRR

afternoon... long time no see....

if the page that's up there is the one that your talking about... it loaded for me in about 15-20 seconds .... what type of connection are you using? might it be a local problem with your ISP??

but to answer your question if you have optimised the graphics as far as you are happy to take them, the only way to get the page to load quicker is to put fewer graphics on.

Z

Hey hey hey, wb Dark. Indeed you just seemed to be gone. Oh well, i hope to hear more from you in the near future. BTW, it took me 45 seconds to load that page. I agree with zonewalker, looks like a local problem. Dont be no stranger now, you hear?

Cheers.

Quote:

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Originally posted here by -DaRK-RaiDeR-
Hello,

First of all, greetings to everybody again after some time without posting in the forums. Hope everything's ok here. At this moment i don't have enough time to be in AO posting (i have been just looking around from time to time) but now i have a problem and i need some help.

I have redesigned a website at www.flagmag.com but it takes too much to load the main page. I have tried reducing the size and quality of the images and from lasting 167 seconds to load the main page i took it to 135 seconds but is still a lot. Other important sites like nfl.com, nhl.com, nba.com or espn.com last between 65 and 100 seconds to load. My question is if there is another way to reduce even more the time the main page takes to load. What can i do?

Thanks,

DKRR

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Hey, Dark, welcome back..

I followed the link to that page and it loaded for me in less than 10 seconds.. Of course I've got a high-speed connection, but I didn't notice anything really out of the ordinary.. As stated, the only way that you can get a website to load faster is to use less graphics and such and/or reduce the size of the existing graphics..

You may want to check with the webhost and see if they were experiencing any problems (just by coincidence) during the time you were working with the site - it's possible I guess..

you're right. compared to nfl, nfl, etc, you load slow.
i attribute most of that to your images. you have many images that are very big. if the user wants a bigger image, let them click on it and pop up a new window/tab. the other sites use much less color and images. you use images as backgrounds, they have white or simple web safe colors. once i loaded your page and cached it, however, the load time was drastically reduced since i had the images already. repeat viewers should be happy, but thats not what you want. you want to catch their eye immediately to keep them there altogether. all of your links are images, which also slows down load time. all in all. thats my diagnosis. even optimized, images take a while to load. once their cached, they're fine, but initial loads will be slow.

Guys,

I forgot to tell that it says it takes 135 seconds to load with a 28.800 modem, i have never changed this option so i measured the rest of the sites (nfl, espn, etc.) with the 28.800 modem option so my site is still slow to load. It takes much less with other speeds obviously. But as you said, images may be the problem and i have already reduced them to the minimum size. I'll try to follow your other advices tough. I'm using a cable connection so it takes a few seconds to load to me too but people in other continents doesn't have this speed and so i should fix this "problem".

It was a pitty this question was a whole day without being answered just because at first i had written it in the Web Security Forum and because the threads in that forum aren't anymore in the main page..., so i decided to delete it and post it again in the General Chit Chat Forum because i know that forum is checked more often.

Thanks again for your help, as always,

DKRR

I know, Imma little late, but like qwerty said w/ the large images, you could change the file type, looks like you use mainly jpegs (good quality, but high overhead), maybe try portable network graphics (.png) file format, or scale down the larger images, like qwerty suggested, and change those to .png with a link to the larger, better looking .jpegs.

i think the problem are the images...
maybe you should try OPTIMIZING your bitmaps (there is software for it but i don´t remember the name) or you should change to PNG

yeh the image is the problem try to change it to GIF file cus more faster to load you can use your own paint software to change it just save it to GIF file..
peace

took me just over a minute which is average on 56K from Australia, for me thats better than most sites i visit that have a few images on them, you could always try simplifying the image side of things and use some tables with blocks of color or CSS to maybe do away with a few of your images?

then theres always the option of using some of the images for more than 1 part of this main page, that way theyre likely to be cached and not have the need to get seperate images for everything :)

[edit]also i just noticed that while looking at the AMD website, with a similar number of images (37 as opped to 34 for your site i think) took about 30 seconds to load, maybe its s server side issue?[/edit]

Hi -DaRK-RaiDeR-

Congratulations on a well presented site. The download time was fine for me using a 56k connection in Australia. But if you want to reduce the download time, a nobel goal which all web developers should consider, I would suggest reducing the number of images on the front page. If you have already used image optimization their filesizes will not be reduced further without a loss of quality. Therefore your only option is to reduce the number of images. I know you might balk at this suggestion as you have obviously spent a lot to time creating an asthetically pleasing site, but there are obvious benefits in having a faster loading site.

According to most web usability gurus (and I'm not JUST talking about Neilsen :)) users can be very impaitient with sites that are new to them. They want to know that there is something of interest before they divert their attention elsewhere. Therefore the load times of the front page is very important. A quick look at some of the most visited sites on the net (yahoo, cnet, amazon) shows a limited splattering of images. Users want something that is easy for them to use as well. Few will return to a site if they have to wait too long the first time. Much of this is changing with the growing adoption of broadband. And commendably you are considering those using a 28.8 connection.

I would recommend reviewing some of the graphics used for headings/links in the two side columns. They could easily be replaced with text, but I am guessing they are also the smallest files. The images/NewsletterBanner.jpg image is quite large bit of real estate at the top of the page for two links. Also the size of the picture on the center colum and the player of the month pictures could be reduced.

Good luck