Webpage weight?
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- Nairn
I'm living in the past. Back in my day, we'd be hard-pushed to justify making a page over 100kb.
I'm guessing things have changed - I saved off the BBC homepage and was flabbergasted to see it weigh in at over 400kb!
So, I guess I shouldn't be worried that my slightly AJAX-heavy page is weighing in at 150kb (which includes the first 'slide' of 70-odd kb intro images), right?
What do you guys build to if you're making a non media-heavy site?
- harlequino0
Haven't thought about it since broadband has become the norm in my usual target audiences. 400k seems a little heavy, but a couple hundred kb should present no issue, particularly if you aren't dropping in lots of media.
(PS...jumping Christ, what time is there? Go to bed.)
- Nairn0
H - does your site load in all the image previews on initial boot up?
I've just saved off a copy of your homepage with FF and it's weighing in at 4.5mb - but I'm not sure if FF is doing some minor spidering, or something?
Just curious!
- harlequino0
Interesting question, I'm honestly not sure. 4.5 seems awful gigantic, there must be some weird spidering or the like happening due to how I'm using the little javascript for larger images. All the smaller thumbs are very compressed.
- I caveat this with the fact that this site was tossed up super fast due to circumstances at the time. So who knows.harlequino
- But the work I normally do usually just falls in a K range in line with very simple practical testing. If it's slow, I look into it.harlequino
- aka 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'!
:)Nairn
- airey0
none of that shit matter anymore. seriously. we're watching 30mb video files on web pages now, you really worry about a 400k page?!? i too made web pages for 14.4k modems and understand it all but it's just a complete non-issue now. my 2 cents. i'm probably wrong.
- 1pxsolid0
haha yeah but the 30MB videos are streamed :)
400K's not tooooo bad. A little bulky. I think you have to factor the amount of visitors to your website, and perhaps the type of visitors.
Also if your sites large but while it's loading you can read content, then it's not too bad. But if you users are sitting staring at a blank page because there's a 2MB image loading then that's not good.
- by the same argument the 400k also 'streams' into the browser by loading in bits and pieces.airey
- rzrffglyr0
I'm probably also relaxed about the weight because many flash pages are typically megs on initial load, and many users have a decent connection these days - depends on target though.
If relevant, make sure to have some kind of 'live text' that is worth reading on the first page, so that the users with a slower connection don't have to stare at blank space while graphics load.
- Nairn0
*demibump
Any other opinions?
The reason I'm asking is that I'm making a simple corporate site for a wee company which may attract users from across Europe, not necessarily on broadband. It won't exclusively not, either, so I don't want to be as frugal as I had when 56k was high end...
- Stugoo0
make it small as possible, optimise everything, stream where you can for the lowest common denominator.
- shitehawke0
I'd say about 5 grammes, give or take. Or did that need to include the weight of the monitor?
- But really, as Stuggo says, optimise as much as possible, 400kb seems excessive.shitehawke
- Nairn0
So, should I take it that no one else really knows either?
- flavorful0
Nairn, I don't build to any specifics to be honest.
I know this doesn't help answer your question, however, it does bump the thread.
To be honest if you're using AJAX that doesn't seem too large and in fact depending on how it loads will do just the same as a 30mb video file and "stream" its content when appropriate to the end-user.
If the bulk of the load is in scripts, perhaps (and I think you're doing this) have a quick lite intro page which explains the need to download everything beforehand (it'll only have to happen once), and given the size ... even at (mind-boggling that anyone even uses one anymore) 56k you should be more than fine.
To be honest, and now I know I'm really not helping.
Fuck people who aren't on broadband. And I would point to such mainstream sites as the BBC and other sites that are hit millions of times a day as industry reasons why.
- DownHill0
you're too honest you are
- Nairn0
I'm a little disappointed with you, DH - I checked your site yesterday, assuming your work was the paragon of slick'n'lean construction... Not at all! Over a meg, with one tiny asset weighing in at 115kb? Zounds.
Not that it matters for your target market, of course, but still I hoped.
- This isn't a crit, before you get twitchy - just an observation.Nairn
- Autokern0
Once here someone posted a one page folio which was 20 megs (no joking). If you avoid that i'd say you're done.
About the bbc webpage there's a lot of asynchronous stuff going on there, so take those 400kb with a grain of salt. I usually try to stay in the 200-250kb limit + loaded (mainly flash, that is).
Then againb, different needs, different solutions.
- Nairn0
I'm basing my page weights on a simple 'Save Page As..' to emulate the landing weight, so it kind've ignores any extra streaming content.
Thanks very much for your answer, Autokern - practical advice from the field was what I was after!
- janne760
yet, think of the people in africa!