How can I reduce my heavy Page size?

[Ozzman]

I have used navigational menus and a flash animation on the main page of my web site. The increase in weight of the page is obvious in this case. The page size is 170 K now. I thought this page size is too heavy for Google. Then I checked my competitor’s website and they are also using heavy flash animations and navigational menus but their page size is not more than 60 K. Can I ask what the main reason of it is? Where I am missing anything or what should I do to use flash animation and navigational menu with reduced size like my competitors?

Please also share, why a heavy page size is not good for Google? If you reference by an article about it, it will be more helpful for me.

[dinkoonks]

flash page in general is a bad thing for google. google have to parse for usefull content etc ...

havy pages with a lot of usefull info is always good for seo

[wige]

Originally Posted by Ozzman

Please also share, why a heavy page size is not good for Google? If you reference by an article about it, it will be more helpful for me.

A "heavy" page is not good for search engines because search engines generally only allot so much space in their indexes for web pages. Web pages larger than the search engine's index limit will only have up to that limit of their content indexed. The limits are believed to be 250k for Yahoo, 500k for Google and 1mb for MSN/Live. One place you can check for confirmation is: Search Engine Indexing Limits: Where Do the Bots Stop? [Search Marketing] which details a study to determine these exact limits. I have seen documentation in Google Webmaster Help confirming their limit is currently 500kb for all but high PR sites, which are alloted 1mb or more, but unfortunately I have not been able to locate that document lately.

[bj]

Though it won't help on the first pageload, which is the page you have an issue on, in general it's good to have all layout stuff in a separate stylesheet, which is cached. Rollover navigation menus are more easily and lightly done using css rather than bloated javascripts (especially Dreamweaver's bloated javascript!) Without seeing the page it's hard to make specific recommendations.

Besides the Search Engines, you need to be aware that, thanks to our lovely shortsighted government here in the US, there are still a significant number of people who access the internet using dialup or satellite connections, which are much slower than broadband. So a fast loading page is not just important for the Search Engines.

[CanuckSEO]

I've worked with sites that have this exact problem

What you could do is javascript out your flash etc. and reference the javascript files externally, that will lower your overall file size.

However you do risk the possibility (however slim) of some of those scripts taking longer to load.

So you have to decide if that's what you want to do - if you have a reliable web host, and page load time isn't an issue then I'd say javascript out all the non-necessary items.

FYI, by javascript out I mean use javascript with document.write :

<SCRIPT type="text/javascript"> document.write("<p>HTML code here!<\/p>") </SCRIPT>

then turn it into an external js file

[MeanSEO]

The key is how much TEXT is on the page - that's where you will tap out the SEs page size limit.

As for surfers: more graphics, flash etc slows down load times.

My PDA limits how much it will load per page.

[lutenegger]

Without seeing your page and the competitors page it's pretty difficult to evaluate where the true problem is. Post some links so we can direct solutions at your specific situation.

[G[dot]com]

I second lutenegger, post some links please.

Do you mean your SWF file is 170kb? it won´t affect SEO, the question is... can´t you optimize the SWF file (exporting it properly?) it´s heavy in average for a flash menu to be that fat.

Perhaps your problem is there, how you are managing flash. And certainly for the general and obvious anwser: you should rethink about using a falsh menu at all (cost-benefit).

[kcire]

It's a strange thing this Page Size matter...

Personally I never experience any problem when it comes to loading my own websites in my own browsers. But according to the numerous 'site-checkers' and 'website optimalisation gadgets' the size of my pages is a problem?!

As an example I name one of them:
SiteReportCard: Web Site Optimization and Promotion Tools

Everything seems oke, except the size of my pages, which affects the load time...Problem is that me myself haven't got any problem with the loadtime, it seems perfect to me.

I have reduced the size of my images...I have cleaned up the styles in the HTML pages (as good as it could be done), got all Javascripts to be external and don't know what to do more.

I am talking about the website mentioned in my signature. A revamped Wordpress weblog, that should do the trick.

Ah well...So far I only have got one complaint about the loading speed...And the number of visitors still is growing. So as long as the only things complaining about loading speed and page sizes are these gadgets and websites I think I don't care so much...

[lexus]

The website: Face2Face Fotograveren: Wij graveren uw fotos in sieraden en relatiegeschenken. Persoonlijke cadeaus

How to increase loading speed of webpages? Thank your for your advise.

[bj]

Personally I never experience any problem when it comes to loading my own websites in my own browsers.

Hard clear your cache, then try loading your page.

And also try loading it here, it simulates a dialup connection:

Sloppy - the slow proxy for dial-up modem speed simulation (slow down)

[adverlicious]

Another idea to add to an already helpful list:

Ask your webmaster if your site, unknown to you, has a default image that loads if/when Flash is not available. These images load automatically when a user doesn't have Flash -- a great idea, 2-4 years ago when Flash was not 95%+ available. But this security comes with a price: 25-75k (sometimes more) of gif/jpg download for every visitor.

So: check your site analytics data and see if Flash penetration amongst your visitors is high enough to confidently remove this insurance.

[datetopia]

Search engines are based on text. They read texts from html tags. They don't use other content like images, animations for their algorithms, only texts (labels) attached to these.

Big external images or flash files are not a problem for search engines as they don't need to load those. They could be a problem for some users because of page loading time.

A good strategy for the future would be to organize your website's content in multiple smaller pages (use a CMS).

[NetProwler]

At the risk of repeating, I will summarize the available options to reduce the file size:

Move out all your Javascript and inline style sheets to external files ( this induces caching for the end users and the search engines don't need to crawl through tons of code to reach the meat of the matter - your content).

Optimize your images and Flash files - Images can be optimized without sacrificing on overall image resolution. Use Vector graphics more in Flash if possible. Bit map images add more to the file size than vector images.

Tables in HTML add to the clutter. Opt for CSS based table-less positioning of HTML elements. This method obviates the need for long winded nested table clutter.

[BossWebmaster]

You need to optimize those pictures, and make sure they are scaled down to the size you are using them at in flash. In other words, scale the pictures to their correct size before you import them into flash.

Don't let anyone tell you that you need to take flash off of your site, it looks great, and the way you are using it will not affect your search ranking.

[davidweb]

Originally Posted by Ozzman

I have used navigational menus and a flash animation on the main page of my web site. The increase in weight of the page is obvious in this case. The page size is 170 K now. I thought this page size is too heavy for Google. Then I checked my competitor’s website and they are also using heavy flash animations and navigational menus but their page size is not more than 60 K. Can I ask what the main reason of it is? Where I am missing anything or what should I do to use flash animation and navigational menu with reduced size like my competitors?

Please also share, why a heavy page size is not good for Google? If you reference by an article about it, it will be more helpful for me.

You should try to convert your website from TABLES to DIV based design.

Along with this you should use external js files to display flash script. It is of no use to embed flash script within your own HTML code

[BossWebmaster]

IMO converting to DIV's will only save you a minuscule amount of loading time, only worth it if you're really board and have nothing else to do with your time.

The JS files thing is not a bad idea, I don't know if it will help you with loading time though.

[hwajcman]

Is the SEs page size limit still 101K?

[TheStig]

Guys surely you are aware that the 100k size relates to the html and html alone. Flvs and swfs and JS can add to megabytes in size never mind 100k.

If you are running a cms and code coming from different files, just view source save then check the .html file size.

[bj]

Guys surely you are aware that the 100k size relates to the html and html alone. Flvs and swfs and JS can add to megabytes in size never mind 100k.

No, that's not right. The size is the sum of every file called in to create a page. On a page created from a database it's the sum of the html generated, the images used on the page in both background and from the html, the css, the javascript files, the flash files . . . everything (at least on first load, after that stuff that is in external files is cached.)

And if you don't believe me, test your pages out here:

Sloppy - the slow proxy for dial-up modem speed simulation (slow down)

[BossWebmaster]

Originally Posted by hwajcman

Is the SEs page size limit still 101K?

Where did you get this idea???

[TheStig]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

Where did you get this idea???

It was a common figure quoted for many years regarding page size.

Todays JS libraries and flash blows that argument away well though

After reading the above post it seems to have been increased which make perfect sense as many sites simply wouldn't be listed.

[djarotstudio]

You should try to convert your website from TABLES to DIV based design.

This one should be your first consideration. You could do a self comparison:
Make 2 same look pages, one using table, other using div. you should see the div version is lighter then the table version.
Graphic compression, will be your next consideration. You can optimize it using image ready or photoshop, or other graphic software. The save for web feature should be useful to lighten up your heavy page.

When you're done with the above, recompress your page using gzip compression.
you can read about it here: How To Optimize Your Site With GZIP Compression

Alrite, good luck.

[francis84]

Originally Posted by wige

A "heavy" page is not good for search engines because search engines generally only allot so much space in their indexes for web pages. Web pages larger than the search engine's index limit will only have up to that limit of their content indexed. The limits are believed to be 250k for Yahoo, 500k for Google and 1mb for MSN/Live. One place you can check for confirmation is: Search Engine Indexing Limits: Where Do the Bots Stop? [Search Marketing] which details a study to determine these exact limits. I have seen documentation in Google Webmaster Help confirming their limit is currently 500kb for all but high PR sites, which are alloted 1mb or more, but unfortunately I have not been able to locate that document lately.

I already heard that SE index only a limited size of webpage; but now im much aware on how big my pages should be to be index by SEs.