The Axandra newsletter archive

27 May 2003

This week we're giving you a number of tips to reduce the download times of your Web pages. And, of course, the latest search engine news.

Web surfers hate to wait for slow loading Web pages. If your Web pages don't load fast, a lot of Web surfers will go away without taking a look at your Web pages.

Many times, the number of graphics on a Web page and the complicate table layout are the culprits for slow loading Web pages.

The following tips will help you to make your Web pages appear faster in the Web browser. If you apply these tips to your Web pages, you will make a better first impression to your potential customers.

1. Reduce the number of graphics

For each graphic on your Web page, the Web browser has to make another connection to your server. It takes up to two seconds to establish a connection so a large number of graphics on your Web pages can slow down loading your page considerably.

If you cannot reduce the number of graphics on your Web page, then try to combine several graphics to a single bigger one.

Use the same graphics on your other Web pages so that your Web browser can load the graphics from the cache.

2. Specify the dimensions of your graphics

Always make sure to include the and width dimensions of your graphics in your HTML code. This means that every IMG tag should have the WIDTH and attributes specified.

If the Web browser doesn't have to figure out the dimensions of your graphics, it can already display a graphic placeholders and start displaying the text of your Web page before loading the graphics from the server.

3. Make the top of your page interesting

If one of your Web pages takes a long time to load, make sure that the top of the page contains something interesting to your visitors because this part is displayed first by the Web browser.

If the top of your page contains a meaningless graphic or an unrelated ad, chances are that your visitors will just click to another site before your page gets a chance to be fully reviewed.

4. Divide your tables

Web pages that use a single large layout table take a long time to render in the Web browser. Therefore, it's important to break up the huge table into several smaller ones.

Web browser don't display a table until they can calculate its final size. This means that they must load the complete table code until they can display parts of it to the user.

If you divide a large table into a series of smaller ones, the Web browser can display the smaller tables one at a time. Of course, this doesn't actually decrease the download time of your Web page but the page appears to download much faster to your visitors.

On a similar line, avoid nested tables, i.e. tables within tables within tables. This slows down Web browsers tremendously.

5. Specify the dimensions of your tables

The same principle of graphics applies to tables, too. If you specify the WIDTH and attributes for your tables, then the Web browser doesn't have to load the complete table code to calculate the dimensions of the table.

It's especially important to specify the WIDTH attribute of your table because then the Web browser can already display the top of your table.

6. Use dynamic cell widths

Take a moment to add up the individual widths for each table cell of your table. If it's more than the specified table width, then the Web browser will have problems displaying your table.

When the Web browser tries to display the table with the specified table width although the combined widths of the table cells are bigger, your visitors will see unpleasant and slow display effects.

In this case, the browser has to repaint the whole table because it has determined that the total width of your cells is bigger than the specified table width.

For this reason, you should define the cell widths in percentage terms. For example, if your cell widths are 150 pixel, 300 pixel and 50 pixel, then you should change the specified widths to 30%, 60% and 10% respectively.

If the table cell widths are specified in percentages, then the Web browser can quickly calculate the widths of the table cells. Your Web page will appear much faster.

It's important that you know the download times of your Web pages. In general, your home page should load in 20 seconds on a dial-up connection, whereas the top of your page should be displayed within 5-8 seconds.

If your Web pages are displayed and rendered as quickly as possible, people will have more time to read the actual content of your Web pages. Following the tips above, you should be able to reduce the overall download time of your Web pages.

* Google reduces minimum bid for some keywords

"Google has quietly lowered the minimum price of some keywords in its AdWords program, in a move it hopes will entice more advertisers to try the service.

A Google representative confirmed that the company notified advertisers last week that the minimum bid price for all keywords [had been set to] 5 cents per click. While the majority of keywords were already at this range, others in attractive verticals like travel commanded a higher minimum."

* Overture launches in Italy

Overture has expanded its European operations with a move into Italy, with plans for Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Scandinavia before the end of 2003.

Italy is the sixth international territory for Overture, besides United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea. At launch, Overture's Italian affiliate partners include Tiscali (one of the top Italian ISPs), as well as portals such as Excite Italy and Lycos Italy.

* Espotting news

Pay-per-click advertising network Espotting has announced that it would supply its top five results on Kelkoo, a European shopping search engine.

Espotting Germany announced in an email message to its German customers that their paid listings would appear on the Web sites of the media company SevenOne Intermedia, namely www.prosieben.de, www.sat1.de, www.kabel1.de, www.n24.de, www.sport1.de (all Web sites of German TV channels) and www.wetter.com (popular German weather site).

* Papers written by Google employees

Google has published a partial list of papers written by people now at Google, including "A Bayesian approach to filtering junk e-mail" (of 1998, a method that is now widely used in spam check programs) and "The Utility of exploiting idle workstations for parallel computation." (of 1997, sounds a bit like LookSmart's grub technology :-).

* Google and Dmoz - Are They in Love?

Jean Manco explains the relationship between Google and the Dmoz directory.

* "The world according to Google"

"Google has opened up a universe of information but ended privacy as we once knew it. So, unless you've been a recluse, chances are that Google can dish up all kinds of information about your life -- whether you like it or not."

* "Search engine consolidation is ending"

"Search engine consolidation is nearing its end, according to a new research report released today by The Yankee Group. [...] According to the report, the Web search market has firmly consolidated with three large competitors - Yahoo!, Overture and Google (google.com) - emerging as the dominant players."

* Search the newsletter archive

If you have any questions about search engine ranking, you should try searching our newsletter archive. It now contains more than 50 articles about search engine ranking facts. Don't forget to bookmark if you want to read past articles later.

* Get a top 10 ranking for your favorite keywords

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Our professional search engine optimization tool IBP can give you answers to all these questions.

The popular software site Tucows reviewed IBP and gave it its top rating: "IBP does exactly what it is designed to do and does it extremely well. It's just plain outstanding software." Try the freeware Lite edition.

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