(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)
(NOTE 2: in the tradition of the great Don Rosa’s wondrous masterpiece, here’s the first part that, although written later, fits between two older parts of the series, and so has a non-integer part number)
Although in this age of broadband this is not absolutely vital as it was when everyone had an analog modem, this is still something that shouldn’t be ignored.
Basically, to be browsable, every page of your blog/site should load reasonably fast. “Fast” means less than 5 seconds (if possible, less than 3). And if your site is on your home server, don’t test it from there, but from somewhere else - if possible, at some place not using the same Internet Service Provider (ISP). Same thing if your site is hosted at your place of work - test it from somewhere else, not from your office.
Why is this important? Because people don’t have a lot of pacience, and will quickly dismiss your blog - even if they might eventually find it the most interesting site in the world - if, on their initial visit, the front page, or the first link they click on, takes - noticeably - too long to load.
Possible causes of slowdown:
- Either your HTML page or something you are linking to (like an image file, the most likely case) is too big. That 1 MB 1600×1200 high quality .JPG which loads instantly when you’re browsing locally, will probably take 10 seconds or more to load anywhere else - possibly more than 1 minute for a modem user. Solution: reduce your images, or don’t include such huge files. And limit the number of front page articles to 10-15, no more.
- You are linking to something (again, possibly an image) which is located on a server that is currently too slow for some reason, like unusually heavy usage, software / hardware problems, link problems, etc.. This happens too often with banners - not advertising banners like AdSense (those almost never have problems), but links to other pages (blog directories, etc.) which use external images or scripts. For instance, I had to remove the The Truth Laid Bear status indicator from my blogs, because, although it was an interesting indicator, for the last couple of months it had been getting slower and slower - and usually the whole page had to wait for it to respond. That was simply not acceptable. Solution: find out what is slowing down your site (possibly by removing one banner / link at a time, to see which one it is), and, if it doesn’t improve soon, remove it.
WARNING: this part never ends. It’s not something you can just do once and then forget about. Some external image’s server may, at any time, be a victim of its own success, and get slower and slower. If you find that your front page is taking a while to load, don’t just look at any new additions - it may well be an image link that’s been in your blog, without problems, for 6 months! - Your blog is located on a place which can’t handle its success - either due to the server’s hardware itself, or its link to the Internet. Highly unlikely if you’re using something like Blogger or LiveJournal, but quite possible for a home server (in fact, maybe I’ll have to move some of my own blogs in the future). Solution: move your blog to a new server, and/or a new link.
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Ah, very true. Even with high-speed, I still sometimes will skip that klunky site. With so much competition, every little incentive helps.
Pedro, your wright. Blog should be small, with a few images. Speed must be maximum!