Slow Loading On iWeb Pages - Really in Need of Help! (Thanks!!) :o)

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Level 1

7 points

Slow Loading On iWeb Pages - Really in Need of Help! (Thanks!!) :o)

Hi Everyone!
I have been a lurker here, learning from reading other's posts. I am in serious need of help, as I have been struggling with this issue for over a week and I can't move forward to other things until I get it resolved...

Here's what's up: I am creating a single-page website as a landing page for a product I offer. (These are very common now in product marketing). The page is here: http://www.howtogetamazingrelationships.com.

The page that is there is about the 4th iteration of the page in the quest for a faster-loading page. Everytime I test it - no matter what I do - it ends up being about a 24 second load time. Here's a sample test for review: http://tools.pingdom.com/?url=howtogetamazingrelationships.com&treeview=0&column =objectID&order=1&type=0&save=true

Here are the things I have done to try to speed this baby up:

1. Took my youtube video off auto-play.
2. Optimized the site using Web Site Maestro. 27% decrease in size; no load time difference.
3. Took out shapes and graphics.
4. Rebuilt the site on a blank template - now it is actually a little worse!
5. Took out the website.js file - totally messed things up.
6. Eliminated the navigation.

Nothing is even showing the least bit of difference in speed...and it is driving me crazy.

Here's the thing - I have also contacted Web Site Maestro's support for help, and they said that the problem was the size of the site and the length of the page. But here's the thing - I checked the load speed of a page that is about double my page size and length, and it loads in like 4 seconds: http://tools.pingdom.com/?url=http://www.wealthbeyondreason.com/page2.php&treevi ew=0&column=objectID&order=1&type=0&save=true

Anyone have help/advice for me? I am so frustrated with this, as the iWeb is crazy-easy to build, but I can't have a simple one-page product page load that slow. No one is going to stay around for 24 seconds!

I just am at the end up my rope and don't know anything else to do. I really don't want to rebuild the site again and still not see results, so any help would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance, and I hope you are all having a beautiful day -

:o) Tara

Mac Book Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Apr 5, 2010 12:46 PM

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Answer 1

Wyodor

Level 6

19,930 points

Apr 5, 2010 12:58 PM in response to flowgirl

Your page loads in about 2 seconds.

The wealthbeyondreason pages takes more the 74 seconds and counting.

If you enable the Developer menu (Preferences>General) in Safari you can see for yourself.

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Answer 2

flowgirl Author

Level 1

7 points

Apr 5, 2010 1:30 PM in response to Wyodor

Hi Wyodor!
Thanks for your quick reply! Okay, so I went and checked this and here's my results:

When I did NOT have the developer "resources" enabled (where I can see load time) - it was taking my page FOREVER to load.

The second I clicked to enable the "resources" section - it loaded incredibly fast - less than a second.

And you are right - according to that - the other page loads much slower (and please know I am in no way endorsing his message - it was just an example of a one-page site I could find).

Any idea what is going on here? Most people obviously won't have the developer resources clicked on, so I would assume that their load time would be slow, as mine was without it clicked. Why in the world would that make a difference in load time?

Also, why does it show such a slow load time on the ping.tools site?

Sorry for so many questions - this is all truly new to me.

Thanks again for your help, truly -

:o) Tara

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Answer 3

Wyodor

Level 6

19,930 points

Apr 5, 2010 1:43 PM in response to flowgirl

Correction : the developer menu is in Preferences > Advanced, not General.

I disabled the developer menu, cleared the browsercache and loaded the page again. But I see no difference.

Here's a test that helps you test your internet connection.

http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

It does not help your visitors but it may help you find the bottleneck in your connection.

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Answer 4

flowgirl Author

Level 1

7 points

Apr 5, 2010 1:45 PM in response to flowgirl

Okay, more info -

I checked my site on a different web analyzer, and it does seem to be loading quickly - 15.66 seconds for a 56 k, but only 3.6 for T1. So that is good -

One thing I noticed in the recommendations is that there are 6 scripts that are running, that can slow things down. I don't really know how to change that (I am pretty web-savvy, but far from a developer) Here's what they recommended on the page -

Analysis and Recommendations from webanalyzer.com:

TOTAL_OBJECTS - Caution. You have 18 total objects on this page. From 12 to 20 objects per page, the latency due to object overhead makes up from 75% to 80% of the delay of the average web page. See Figure II-3: Relative distribution of latency components showing that object overhead dominates web page latency in Website Optimization Secrets for more details. Consider reducing, eliminating, and combining external objects (graphics, CSS, JavaScript, iFrames and XHTML) to reduce the total number of objects, and thus separate HTTP requests. Consider using CSS sprites to help consolidate decorative images.
TOTAL_IMAGES - Caution. You have a moderate amount of images on this page (10 ). Consider using fewer images on the site or try reusing the same image in multiple pages to take advantage of caching. Using CSS techniques such as colored backgrounds, borders, or spacing instead of graphic techniques can help reduce HTTP requests.
TOTAL_SCRIPT - Warning! The total number of external script files on this page is 6 , consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refactor, and minify to optimize your JavaScript files. Ideally you should have one (or even embed scripts for high-traffic pages) on your pages. Consider suturing JavaScript files together at the server to minimize HTTP requests. Placing external JavaScript files at the bottom of your BODY, and CSS files in the HEAD enables progressive display in XHTML web pages.
HTML_SIZE - Caution. The total size of this HTML file is 60492 bytes, which is above 50K but below 100K. With 50K of images and multimedia this means that your page will load in about 20 seconds. Consider optimizing your HTML and eliminating unnecessary features. To give your users feedback, consider layering your page or using positioning to display useful content within the first two seconds.

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Answer 5

flowgirl Author

Level 1

7 points

Apr 6, 2010 7:09 AM in response to flowgirl

One more really strange thing:

When I checked various speed analyzers, they often say that there are 0 images and 0 scripts on the page, but that the page loads in like 3 seconds.

When I pull the page up in Safari on my own computer, I am clocking it at about 20 seconds for everything to come up.

So - is it possible that the page is loading in like 3 seconds, but that the images and such are not being recognized?

I just don't know what else to do with this - because it is definitely not loading as quickly as it says.

Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated - I am more than happy to offer a $50 iTunes gift card to the person who solves this for me.

Thanks so much -
:o) Tara

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