Recommended Page Size

[Stevo]

Hi All,

I have a question i am seeking some ideas on: What is the optimal and/or maximum page size (including images and scripts, css, etc)? After some new mods and tweaking, our site has just hit the 100K mark, which is a bit of a worry. Has the wider adoption of broadband relaxed these size limitations a little? Or are we still catering to the dark ages of 28.8 Kbps modems? <Shiver />

I figure most people will have different ideas and opinions on this, so i'd love to hear them!

Cheers,
Steve

[Blackicicle]

I'm not quite sure if I fully understand your question... But on average my pages are 6kb each, there are the odd ones that go to 15kb and sometimes even 20kb but usually never more. My images are usually around 20kb-30kb each, which is reasonable.

Before I would link to my css file which was around 10kb-20kb depending on the size but now I usually "include" my css in the page. (I now do this because I found that 98.945634% of the time the page would load and the css file wound not, Not only on my site but on others including webproworld so to avoid this my css are ALWAYS "included" in the page itself)

I think 100kb is a but high for a page by itself, but if you've got images included in the that sum then it may be ok, as I said I didn't quite understand the question.

[Stevo]

Hi Icicle, thanks for the reply. Sorry bout the lack of clarity. I did mean including images, css files, scripts, and the like (all the stuff you'd get if you did file->save as->web page complete). I guess the trouble of including CSS inline is the SEO handicap it brings... (even tho so much of my CSS file is rarely used!) It sounds like it might be an issue with your browser if CSS files arent't loading? The actual HTML code of my pages shouldn't ever be much more than 20kb. Its the other stuff that adds up...

Just looking for ideas on what is considered an acceptable total...

Cheers,
Steve

[vwebworld]

Hi,
You'll find a discussion about page/site size here:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=18237&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

In general, 100k is way too big... 20-50K is ok
the smaller the better! Broadband is not so widespread
as to justify a "heavy" website. Just think, if
your site loads quickly on dial-up... how great it
would be loading on broadband!!!

~Roland

[Niko Holopainen]

I'm on the side of designing for the lowest common denominator, even then - due to user confort I've tried to avoid breaking several products pages (about 4-5 printed A4's long) into separate pages.

Thus average page size for the new site that will be published next week is 15kb with 25-27kb product description pages and larger (varies 10-100kb) product category listing pages.

Images included and once loaded 5kb css file added to aforementioned sizes for the first page entered.

Yours truly, as always.

: Niko

[Jeff Colburn]

Hi,

You need to have your page load in 20 seconds or less. 90% of surfers are still connected with slow dial-up connections. The industry doesn't expect this to change much for at lease six years. This is because many people aren't doing online gaming, downloading large graphics or anything else that justifies the higher cost of high speed connections.

Go to http://watson.addy.com/ and put in your webpage address and you will find out how quickly it will load at various connect speeds.

Have Fun,
Jeff

[Stevo]

Thanks for all that great input! I guess i should have done more research into current modem trends, eh, rather than simply wishing upon a star! I guess that suggests a streamlining of our code...

Thanks for that resource too, Jeff. One prob is that it doesn't include CSS and JavaScript files by the look of it, but then they are only an issue for the first page. Still, its an excellent resource - definitely on the bookmark list!!

I guess we are still a little way away from the utopian 'design for the user not for the modem' society - but who knows - one day? Thanks to everyone for their help!

Steve

[tOKmaZ]

the higher cost of high speed connections

This is not the reality for all internet users. When we upgraded from ISDN to DSL we saved almost 30% of the old costs (we were not much on the internet with the isdn, max 5-10h/week)

[Stevo]

Definitely second that - when we got ADSL, by the time we saved the cost of another phoneline, all the phonecalls, and bandwidth limits it worked out cheaper - for 10-20 times the speed and bandwidth, plus a billion times the convenience. Cant recommend it enough.

That being said, you have to work with whats there - there are only very few connections available in my suburb, and not many suitable broadband alternatives, so most still dial up from what i understand. These have to be catered for too!

Steve

[paulhiles]

This resource has been given in many other threads, but just in case you missed it, I'll include it here:

Web Page Analyzer (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/)
(this site is used in the Speed Report for the Web Developer extension for Mozilla Firefox).

There is a notable difference in the results returned by this tool compared to the watson.addy speed test. The web page analyzer attempts to calculate download speed based on a page's related files, stylesheets, external javascripts, etc... maybe this is causing the discrepancy?

One further resource that is definitely worth checking out is SiteReportCard (http://www.sitereportcard.com) - a truly excellent set of tools!

Hope that helps,

Paul

[tOKmaZ]

Dr.watson didn't work 4 me... it wouldent work at all...

[paulhiles]

Dr.watson didn't work 4 me... it wouldent work at all...
Strange.. I tried it a few times.. each time varying the checked options. The speed test seems purely based on the HTML content, which for Erimus, was just under 7kb, and gave a flattering result of 1.82 secs for a 56kb connection.
In reality, once the CSS, images and scripts are added, the total download is nearer to 43kb and just over 10 seconds to download on 56kb! Not so good! :o(