Sloooow page
Some friends of mine have recently had a site developed for them, but the front page is extremely slow. The top area loads, but then the rest seems to take forever. I am not familiar enough with HTML to be able to give them much advice, and the guy that did the design is probably a more experienced designer than HTML coder, so I was hoping someone here could take a look and make some suggestions.
The address of the page is http://www.gan.ca/
The address of the page is http://www.gan.ca/
wow that did forever to load.
just start removing things from the bottom part of the page ( i notice you are using tables....starting by taking off table rows) until the page loads quicker....just one at a time. when the page loads quicker, look at the content in the last row you removed, and it's probably something in there that is causing the slowdown.
BRUNO
just start removing things from the bottom part of the page ( i notice you are using tables....starting by taking off table rows) until the page loads quicker....just one at a time. when the page loads quicker, look at the content in the last row you removed, and it's probably something in there that is causing the slowdown.
BRUNO
Problem number one, all is done with Macromedia Dreamweaver....
The page is also using some pretty big images. These can really slow down the loading of the page, especially since they are being preloaded by Dreamweaver...that does that a long time with this amount of images. The mouseover events that Macromedia dreamweaver generates are very slow, and there are much better scripts for that purpose then that.
Something I saw...it shocked me...the table above has a colspan of 17...what on earth for?? 17 spacer images make for that 17 cells in the table...any need? I don't see it..
The fact that there is a colspan of 17 makes for a table that is complex without a reason, the more complex a table, the longer it takes to load...
I would definately redesign the HTML structure of this page...
Max.
The page is also using some pretty big images. These can really slow down the loading of the page, especially since they are being preloaded by Dreamweaver...that does that a long time with this amount of images. The mouseover events that Macromedia dreamweaver generates are very slow, and there are much better scripts for that purpose then that.
Something I saw...it shocked me...the table above has a colspan of 17...what on earth for?? 17 spacer images make for that 17 cells in the table...any need? I don't see it..
The fact that there is a colspan of 17 makes for a table that is complex without a reason, the more complex a table, the longer it takes to load...
I would definately redesign the HTML structure of this page...
Max.
Slooooooooooow is an understatement.
You can definitely tell it was written by a designer and not a developer. The page itself is
about 20k so cleaning up the table structure is not going to yield much. There are three big
problems with the page. Number one is that there is far too much reliance on fat graphics
that push the page up over 100k. Number two is DreamWeaver preload is about the slowest
there is. Number # is scripting inside cells makes table rendering taka about 3 times as long
in IE and about 5 times as long for Netscrap (if it does not crash and burn).
The code is just plain bad and is using font tags instead of styles which also renders marginally
slower in newer browser.
Two pieces of advice. Get rid of DreamWeaver, and Give the page to a developer.
Two observations comments. Convert the jpegs to lighter gifs, would make the page lighter.
A style sheet would make the code a lot easier to cleanup.
Cd&
You can definitely tell it was written by a designer and not a developer. The page itself is
about 20k so cleaning up the table structure is not going to yield much. There are three big
problems with the page. Number one is that there is far too much reliance on fat graphics
that push the page up over 100k. Number two is DreamWeaver preload is about the slowest
there is. Number # is scripting inside cells makes table rendering taka about 3 times as long
in IE and about 5 times as long for Netscrap (if it does not crash and burn).
The code is just plain bad and is using font tags instead of styles which also renders marginally
slower in newer browser.
Two pieces of advice. Get rid of DreamWeaver, and Give the page to a developer.
Two observations comments. Convert the jpegs to lighter gifs, would make the page lighter.
A style sheet would make the code a lot easier to cleanup.
Cd&
Well, either they cleaned up the images or their server speeded up, because it loaded up pretty fast for me -- Netscape 6, 56k modem. Nothing is ever very fast.
Yes, the table structure could use some work. But unless they cleaned it up (and they might have) it's not as bad as some I've seen.
I suspect that they had sliced up the images in Fireworks, and sliced them up exceedingly small, making a unnecessarily complext table.
Dreamweaver doesn't generate those kinds of tables... but Fireworks sure does.
Yes, the table structure could use some work. But unless they cleaned it up (and they might have) it's not as bad as some I've seen.
I suspect that they had sliced up the images in Fireworks, and sliced them up exceedingly small, making a unnecessarily complext table.
Dreamweaver doesn't generate those kinds of tables... but Fireworks sure does.
I guess there developer is here.
Loaded quite fast for me.
56k dialup Netscape6.2 and IE6.
What Now.
Loaded quite fast for me.
56k dialup Netscape6.2 and IE6.
What Now.
Still very slow here though...
Probably just a teeny weeny better day for the server...
I still feel that the dreamweaver crap along with the big images is the source of the problem..and as Cd& stated, scripting within the cells won't help either...
Also I noticed the tables are using mixed percentages and fixed width...also not the best practice..
Max.
Probably just a teeny weeny better day for the server...
I still feel that the dreamweaver crap along with the big images is the source of the problem..and as Cd& stated, scripting within the cells won't help either...
Also I noticed the tables are using mixed percentages and fixed width...also not the best practice..
Max.
still taking forever for me...IE 5.5 Win98
After about a minute I didn't wait around any more, just left...
After about a minute I didn't wait around any more, just left...
ASKER
Sounds like Netscrape loads it quicker, because it is still interminably slow on this end, IE 6 and 7M DSL.
Which really doesn't make much sense... Netscape is almost always slower than IE.
ASKER
It is my thinking that there is something in the code structure that is preventing it from loading until all the elements have been loaded. Normally a page will load and leave placeholders for graphics. That isn't happening here.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Hi,
Having 61 images (totalling over 100K) in the main page is not a good idea - here lies the biggest cause of the load speed.
Also, seven of those images are over 3000 bytes each, which where possible shouldn't be exceeded when designing web pages:
12517 bytes images/fw/menu_en2/menu_en
11059 bytes images/news/alicequote.gif
6654 bytes images/news/freejump.jpg
5234 bytes images/news/gancuisine.jpg
5150 bytes images/news/upcoming/newki
4807 bytes images/icons/animalnews.gi
3241 bytes images/news/icons/transpor
3 of these are jpeg's and could probably be converted to gif's and reduce the size quite considerably, and the top image (...r1_c1.jpg) is rather too big!
Neil
Having 61 images (totalling over 100K) in the main page is not a good idea - here lies the biggest cause of the load speed.
Also, seven of those images are over 3000 bytes each, which where possible shouldn't be exceeded when designing web pages:
12517 bytes images/fw/menu_en2/menu_en
11059 bytes images/news/alicequote.gif
6654 bytes images/news/freejump.jpg
5234 bytes images/news/gancuisine.jpg
5150 bytes images/news/upcoming/newki
4807 bytes images/icons/animalnews.gi
3241 bytes images/news/icons/transpor
3 of these are jpeg's and could probably be converted to gif's and reduce the size quite considerably, and the top image (...r1_c1.jpg) is rather too big!
Neil
ASKER
Thanks for the help people. I passed the information along, I'm not sure if they've changed anything but it seems to be loading faster. I'm splitting points here:
Dreammaster
https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=html&qid=20273922
brunobear
https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=html&qid=20273923
meos
https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=html&qid=20273924
Dreammaster
https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=html&qid=20273922
brunobear
https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=html&qid=20273923
meos
https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=html&qid=20273924
Paul,
Glad we could help. Thanks for the A. :^)
Team,
Good collaboration! :^)
Cd&
Glad we could help. Thanks for the A. :^)
Team,
Good collaboration! :^)
Cd&
High Fives Cd& and meos...well done guys.. :)
Max.
Max.
i checked this page again :)
It loaded much faster;
good work!
It loaded much faster;
good work!
ASKER
I've noticed that an empty script tag was taken from the bottom of the table. That may have been the problem.
MUCH better :-)
advice: start with small and grow up step by step - first create basic layout witout scripts and image effects then add them as nessesary, but always check for perfomance while adding new stuff to page
hope it helps!