Subscribe via RSSMajor Issues With common Blog Layout
November 21, 2007
Yesterday I checked my blog and was too surprise about something... the actual weight in term of Kilobytes. By saying that I mean, our blogs are not just heavy, they are too heavy.
Shocking Findings
I checked my own blog and here are some shocking results:
- Over 512KB for the home page and
- Over 380KB for single post.
Currently most blogs have too heavy home page, extra heavy category pages, and heavy single post page. A very good example is John Chow dot Com. His home page cost over 1MB of disk-space and bandwidth.
Avatar:
- Each normal avatar is about 2-3KB, some abnormal avatar is 30KB.
- Too many avatars add up too much weight on the page.
Advertisements:
- Curved AdSense and Image ad normally is > 25KB each unit (bad).
- AdSense plain text ad, simplest design < 5KB each unit (good).
- Square image ad or banner image ad also > 25KB each unit (very bad).
Widgets:
- Each widget need to get a request to the server and download JavaScript code
- Each widget have their own theme design elements, especially heavy graphic.
Solutions
After finding out it's too heavy I decided to fix it right away, and here are the steps:
- The widgets from MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog was cleaned out into a single page called "Community".
- Remove all Image Ad
- Remove curved AdSense for Content. Replaced by the most simple one possible
- Replace widget by using tracking code only.
Unfortunately the BlogCatalog doesn't have tracking code, so the use of a widget is a must. However, I tried to reduce it to the minimum.
Outcome
After all the elements are rearranged as mentioned above, here is the outcome:
- Homepage: 213KB
- Single post: 119KB
After implementing the "Christmas Theme" and enabled the Post Teaser plugin, here are the results:
- Homepage: 198KB
- Single post: 123KB
The different is abvious:
- Homepage: from 518KB to 198KB, save 320KB, 2.6 times faster loading time
- Single post: from 380KB to 123KB, save 257KB, 3 times faster loading time
Just one small bias, this mainly concern the first hit. Consequential hits don't have that much saving because the images are not reloaded.
What's next?
This is only the result of analysis and some quick solution. If you would like to know more about how to conduct the testing and the reason behind doing all this, then I will post another entry soon. There is no Poll at the moment, so please leave a comment on this page to let me know you.
I will be open to help anyone in checking their blog against this problem. I'm willing to help you improve your blog too, just send me a request.
Tags: analysis, Blogging, mistake, Web design
how did u check the "weight"?
Hi Binh,
When I first started blogging I never gave this a second thought and it was a huge mistake, my first blog was a product blog and a lot of visitors moved away because the page took so long to load.
My news blog is much quicker since I made the necessary changes like you have done.
It certainly does make a difference and if you want more visitors your pages need to load quickly, it's hard to keep the attention of your audience and you need to start off on the right track, this advice is very good.
I would like to see a follow up article from you explaining to your visitors how you check this information and the reasons why it's so important.
Great article.
Tony:)
if it's hard to understand, i think snapshots definitely help. thanks binh.