Site performance increase - yes or no

[Admin]

I am currently testing a possible improvement in the performance of the site by changing the order of when the different types of code within the site is loaded each time you open a page.

 

I am very interested to hear if you notice any difference...thanks for your help

 

 

[Birdseye]

It's subjective rather than quantative, but pages do seem to load and reload faster than I recall from the recent past.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Individual pages don't seem to be any different from before but I've noticed the last couple of days that after clicking the 'New' button it just hangs for quite a while before anything happens. I timed it, it's a 6sec delay, might just be my internet connection though, but it's usually very fast.

 

EDIT - After clicking the 'New' button, the thin blue progress indicator moves to about 10% and stops there for the 6secs I was referring to. Once it starts to move again the page opens quite quickly. I think that delay used to only be about 2secs previously.

 

Having said that, it's only the mobile, the desktop seems faster than previously if anything.

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

Using my monumentally slow internet connection - most of the time the site comes up OK, but I occasionally get "The connection was reset" "Problem loading page" (only once yesterday). Images seem to be loading now, previously it was hit & miss, with the broken image icon being most frequent, but they almost all loaded when I looked at the thread on Silly Signs yesterday. All yesterday because the internet ground to a halt after that and I gave it away. I am on a laptop with ethernet cable to modem on ADSL Win 7 64, Firefox.

 

 

 

Comparing this site to other popular sites, I have little trouble getting RecFlying, but other sites treat me as a mobile phone (text menu down the side) or completely fail to load.

 

 

 

To load a page (chosen at random from recent):

 

RecFlying "New Posts" - 5 seconds

 

Booktopia - A book "Saving Vegetable Seeds" - 2 mins 10 seconds (not displaying correctly)

 

Realestate.com.au - 8mins 5 secs - loads as text only - search a suburb - fail after about 6 mins (usually fails on home page)

 

ABC.net.au/news/qld - 2 secs

 

Google maps - load 30 secs - find a town in Qld 7 seconds, switch to Earth 35secs (usually longer and fails to fully display)

 

BOM refresh radar - 16 secs

 

BOM forecast - 35 secs

 

CQnews - 35 secs

 

YourTV - 1 min 10 secs - a program 2mins 5sec (opens in new window)

 

Trove.nla.gov - open a newspaper article - 12 mins - failed

 

 

 

Sue

 

 

[Admin]

So far the majority are saying that it is quicker which is great.

 

Sue, 5 secs compared to all other sites except the ABC who have a larger budget than me, is also great to hear.

 

What I have done is grouped all similar code together and ran the page load in a sequence that optimises the order of executing each type of code. There was a lot of experimenting on my local development version of the site but it looks like it was worth the time and effort.

 

However, sometimes when doing this some snippets of code may need to run before other snippets which is why I need to know if things are working correctly...thanks for your help in making the site better

 

Oh, incidentally, the next experiment will be to look at CDN (Content Delivery Network) which will place all the site images on local servers around the world making them load faster no matter where the server of the site's text components which load faster than images are located

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Absolutely improved, both through my normal IP and my VPN. I thought it was just one of those periods where the net seems to go better until I saw you mention it today.

 

I have noticed a definite improvement in how fast the smileys load FWIW.

 

Remember just a few weeks ago I complained about it.

 

 

[Admin]

Remember if you are already on a fast connection you probably wont see much difference, if any, than before. I am an Optus cable at 100mb (10mb per sec) so I dont see any difference

 

 

[Bernie]

The problem for me Ian is when I loose my high speed connection usually around the last week of the month how will it be then .

 

This and one other forum I belong to are the hardest to connect when my speed goes .

 

I don't have unlimited internet .

 

Bernie .

 

 

[Admin]

It should be faster than before Bernie. The whole server is dedicated to this site, it is not shared with anyone else, it is highly spec'd and located in Sydney. I can't do anything more in terms of the server without huge cost which would only see big benefits to just a few. The server is only one component and no matter how good I make it the weakest link is from the server to you which is out of my control. But, as you know having been on the site for such a long time I am always trying to improve things for everyone in any way I can

 

 

[Bernie]

Yes Ian its faster then before even out of High speed internet , but now governed by Bigponds crappy speed .

 

All to try and get me to buy more data which I wont just to annoy them .

 

Bernie .