Fast Loading Web Site - What Gives It The Zip?

[klikster]

I just came across this website by accident >> cs-pinnacle [dot] com. I'm not promoting it, but this thing loads pages so fast it's scary.

The initial page load is about normal .. but subsequent pages .. I'm talking one second!. I think part of the reason is the header image and logo are part of the background image .. so that's cached in the browser. But it also seems to have a "flash" component.

Maybe it's because the server is in TL. (can't ping .. maybe a firewall?). I first thought it was built with frames, but it doesn't seem to be.

Can any of you pro web site builders out there tell me why?

I am envious as heck!

Edited April 21, 2008 by klikster

[dsys]

hmm smells like a bit of forum marketing here - but giving you the benefit of the doubt:

I checked the usual suspects.

1. compression - the site is not sending compressed files

2. design - site has loads of errors and does not validate properly, also old table based designs. - so its not that

3. chaching - difficult to check but probably got high cahe exipry values and there appears to be no real dynamic content - could be partly to blame.

4. Proxy chaching - didnt check the setup

5. looks like Site hosted on or around http://www.netway.co.th/ and this site has similar performance so -

I would say its cause its located in Thailand - no apparent fancy stuff going on, that a quick lok shows up.

[Crushdepth]

It's physically located in Thailand so its not subject to the international bandwidth squeeze and that helps a lot (for local users, anyway). Most of the page weight is actually in a single file (the banner) so there aren't too many http requests, which slow things down. And either its on a good quality/high bandwidth host and/or is cached.

[onethailand]

It's local, hosted somewhere in Silom. Javascript loads the header, which is cached by the browser for subsequent loads.

[OxfordWill]

Works on the same principle as postal mail. How long does it take a letter to get from sukhumvit to silom versus sukhumvit to the USA? However if you want to know how a us based site could achieve the same thing, the two main answers are server clustering and gridding. google both

Edited April 21, 2008 by OxfordWill

[klikster]

hmm smells like a bit of forum marketing here - but giving you the benefit of the doubt:

I checked the usual suspects.

1. compression - the site is not sending compressed files

2. design - site has loads of errors and does not validate properly, also old table based designs. - so its not that

3. chaching - difficult to check but probably got high cahe exipry values and there appears to be no real dynamic content - could be partly to blame.

4. Proxy chaching - didnt check the setup

5. looks like Site hosted on or around http://www.netway.co.th/ and this site has similar performance so -

I would say its cause its located in Thailand - no apparent fancy stuff going on, that a quick lok shows up.

Kind of a nasty comment since I've never done any "forum marketing" on TV. And I don't f*****g need your "benefit of the doubt".

I have about 20 sites and this is not one of them. I built and run a site for a Thai friend who deals with "marriage matters" .. and I have never mentioned that site on TV .. and this isn't it that site either.

So you didn't have an answer to my post but you decided to take a slap at me. Amazing!

[Plus]

Well, the head and a couple of big images and menu backgrounds are cached (altogether 25 elements), the size of every new page is about 14 KB and it is generated at once, add a small image of about 12 KB and you have less than 30KB to download. It should be in milliseconds for Thai based websites.

By comparison this page's source is 83KB - nearly six times bigger, it's compiled by requesting database multiple times, and it has a bunch of links that need to be followed through, and it's in Singapore. My Opera draws this page even while it's still sending the last messages

[klikster]

Well, the head and a couple of big images and menu backgrounds are cached (altogether 25 elements), the size of every new page is about 14 KB and it is generated at once, add a small image of about 12 KB and you have less than 30KB to download. It should be in milliseconds for Thai based websites.

By comparison this page's source is 83KB - nearly six times bigger, it's compiled by requesting database multiple times, and it has a bunch of links that need to be followed through, and it's in Singapore. My Opera draws this page even while it's still sending the last messages

I seldom surf Thai sites .. because I can't read Thai .. so I guess I'm so accustomed to seeing the latency between here and the US, UK, Oz .. the speed is startling. I did go back and pull up the page with a fresh browser and it's about "normal", I guess.

I have never surfed in the US using a broadband connection. I always wonder how fast my own sites load.

I wish I understood more about caching and how to use it to advantage.

[Plus]

It's not just local latency - for the first time the page loads all the linked scripts and images, looks like 25 elements altogether - go and fetch, go and fetch, go and fetch. Took almost a minute in Opera, got stuck on element 21, whatever it is.

Every next page is only two requests - the source and a small image file, everything else is in cache already. In fact you can possibly load ALL images in browser's cache from the first page. Then it's just a small, 14KB html source file on all other pages.

Ah, one more thing - my Opera blocks requests to google-analytics that generate page counts or whatever, that saves time, too.

[Crushdepth]

Is it just me or does the banner animation start playing before its fully loaded?

[klikster]

Is it just me or does the banner animation start playing before its fully loaded?

First is the slogan that floats to the top .. then the image exchange that moves in from the left .. info block dropping in. Looks like a flash movie is 312 k.

Graphic design is better than SEO and HTML, IMO. Fixed width at 955 means a horizontal scrollbar on lots of windows .. should have gone for "max-width". Title is way too long to be effective in SE's.

Kudos to the graphic designer.