Server Response Times and Other Bounce rate reducing shit

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greenleaves

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Jan 25, 2008
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Hi Guys,

I had the intention to lower the page load time for my users. So, first thing I did was move to a better server.

Next, I:
Lowered image sizes
Combined css/scripts
Applied CSS sprites
Minified the code (java, css and html)
Applied Compression
Utilized google apps as a free CDN for images (10 Easy Steps to use Google App Engine as your own CDN | Digitalistic - Mashup or die trying)
Applied google library jquerry cache'ing

I've shaved about 2-3 secs off my total page load time for the home page. From 3-5 secs to 1-2. Not bad. I'll report back if/when I see conversion/rankings increase.

But once I get into things, I'm the type of guy to obsess. So, I'm in over my head on a few things and was wondering if any of you tech geniuses could give me a pointer:

Server Response time - I'm using a VPS level 5 at godaddy. I noticed I was having a response time of 167. So I did a trace route and I found my shit bouncing all over the place. I did a trace route for Wickedfire, and BAM! 1-10ms. Fuck me! I want! - So, how the fuck do I get this? Clouflare FTW, or something else? I did a traceroute for other sites that use cloudflare, but they had long response times and similar hops... so not sure how WF is getting suck awesome Server response times. Maybe it is hardware muscle? backbone connection?
 


stop using hostgator and get a good server. Linodes are fast, a barebones server at a host on a major backbone would be ideal. Rackspace is probably a good source for something like that.
 
greenleaves said:
hostgator, not godaddy... lolz, my bad
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I was about to go in at you, with that Godaddy comment part. LOL.

Jon uses voodoo, I'd like to take a peak under the hood of WF too, cause being able to not only withstand a DDOS attack and have a lightening fast respond, is pretty impressive. I thought I was alone at the top of the mountain, would love to compare notes.

Look at the size of data being delivered is a key. WF has less than 200k coming at you bro - for the homepage at least.

Did you check your WMT and see what speed you are coming at?

Also Nginx, that where you need to be at.
 
litespeed = too tech/hands on
rackspace = super awesome, but I'm not ready to spend $1k/month on hosting. I could do lots with that money at the current start up phase of my project
linodes = looks bloody awesomen - I'm going to consider moving
nginx = software I have no clue as to how to integrate, and it seems like it conflicts with cpanel if I tried to install it/have someone do it for me

I'm not sure how much benefit I'd get from linodes. I might just wait until I can move to rackspace, which would have been my initial choice if $ wasn't an issue
 
CCarter said:
I was about to go in at with that Godaddy part. LOL.

Jon uses voodoo, I'd like to take a peak under the hood of WF too, cause being able to not only withstand a DDOS attack and have a lightening fast respond, is pretty impressive. I thought I was alone at the top of the mountain, would love to compare notes.

Look at the size of data being delivered is a key. WF has less than 200k coming at you bro - for the homepage at least.

Did you check your WMT and see what speed you are coming at?

Also Nginx, that where you need to be at.
Click to expand...

WMT isn't reporting it for me. But the site is rather new, I launched in Aug. Analytics reports user page speed of 7.25s... but that is distorted upwards because of one slow day (avg should be 5.3)

I might just move the sucker to ngnx on linode instead of apache on host gator. I wonder how much response time I could shave off by doing so...

If/when I get around to it, I'll post an update here.
 
adamx12m said:
Response times will vary from different locations, don't obsess over one test location.

WebPagetest - Website Performance and Optimization Test
GTmetrix | Website Speed and Performance Optimization
loads.in - test how fast a webpage loads in a real browser from over 50 locations worldwide
Zoompf | Next Generation Web Performance
Click to expand...

Thanks, I realize that... but I shouldn't be experimenting as long a server delay as I am.

And WF fucking rocks. I mean, Webmstersworld which has like 1000x the budget that is used to run WF, they have shitty response times.
 
Linode is good, but there is a minus point since a lot of people here are using it. For example, ezinearticles blocks all incoming request from linode. I tried scraping it from linode VPS. When I used the same code in my local PC, it works. So it had to be that some of you tried doing the same shit.

dchuk said:
stop using hostgator and get a good server. Linodes are fast, a barebones server at a host on a major backbone would be ideal. Rackspace is probably a good source for something like that.
Click to expand...
 
My 2c Amazon EC2 w/ Cloudfront:

Amazon CloudFront CDN - Content Delivery Network | Content Distribution Network

Throw all your static content on S3. That shit be fast bro...
 
Have in mind, that a very fast response time with a quick and clean website can increase your bounce rate - aka make it more worse.

It gives your customers a faster chance to say "oh, thats not what i am looking for".

Its absolut ok and a good goal to have a fast response time but you need in some cases another hook for the bounce rate...
Like a picture or link which brings your customers to click on it instead of leaving the site and try the next SERP link.

A fast response helps here to bring your customers the "hook" as fast as possible.

With the 2nd page, you can even load a bit more to increase the waiting time.
So, landing page fast, next page a bit slower.

Voila, an exellent bounce rate, your customers even browsed a bit around.

And yes, go for nginx - One of the best setups is debian + dotdeb. Dotdeb will bring you all
net stuff in the latest and advanced packages.

Nginx comes there in some fancy packages called flavours- look at this page:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjuNPnOoex7SdG5fUkhfc3BCSjJQbVVrQTg4UGU2YVE#gid=0
 
markbush said:
Have in mind, that a very fast response time with a quick and clean website can increase your bounce rate - aka make it more worse.
Click to expand...

WTF? You have the honor of being my new sig. Good job bro.

4251-full-retard.jpg
 
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CCarter said:
WTF? You have the honor of being my new sig. Good job bro.

4251-full-retard.jpg
Click to expand...

It's like, you know, when you clean your room and if you clean it too hard and you pull a chick in there she's all like "this nigga has a room that's too clean for me I'm gonna bounce from this motherfucker" and she leaves and it teaches you a lesson to always leave a turd in a corner of your room no matter how clean it is
 
CCarter said:
WTF? You have the honor of being my new sig. Good job bro.

4251-full-retard.jpg
Click to expand...

Guy, if you click in the serps to your super fast MfA site which tells everyone in a milisecond "nothing here" - then people do what? Tey go back to SERPs and they click on the next entry...

Then you got what ? However google counts the bounce rates, and its possible to use for this the SERPS & toolbar signals (they already noted that), this will tell google that people will flee from your site as fast as possible.

Or how you define bounce rate, smarty?

Give your people something to do for the case they are not interested and your bounce rate sucks.

Sometimes, even sometimes often, SERPS keys are not that determinated as it looks on the first glance - that produce incoming traffik which will increase the bounce rate because they leave fast when they see its not the searched topic.

These are simple side effects - you do one thing and you got another unexpected effect.

And one side effect for very fast pages can be an increased bounce rate.
Put that in your sig too.
 
markbush said:
Guy, if you click in the serps to your super fast MfA site which tells everyone in a milisecond "nothing here" - then people do what? Tey go back to SERPs and they click on the next entry...

Then you got what ? However google counts the bounce rates, and its possible to use for this the SERPS & toolbar signals (they already noted that), this will tell google that people will flee from your site as fast as possible.

Or how you define bounce rate, smarty?

Give your people something to do for the case they are not interested and your bounce rate sucks.

Sometimes, even sometimes often, SERPS keys are not that determinated as it looks on the first glance - that produce incoming traffik which will increase the bounce rate because they leave fast when they see its not the searched topic.

These are simple side effects - you do one thing and you got another unexpected effect.

And one side effect for very fast pages can be an increased bounce rate.
Put that in your sig too.
Click to expand...


Are you saying... that if a person lands on your webpage, that even if it's not the topic they were looking for, they may click around, therefore increasing your bounce rate? :rolleyes:

If a visitor lands on your website, and it's not the topic they were looking for, that means you have the wrong audience coming to your site. Your site is not targeted, and no matter how fast or slow your website is, they will bounce.

2nd. I think you think we are advocating a website with no content. A Complete blank site?? yeah, If I have a site with no content or images, the visits might bounce, but it will be super fast!!! :rolleyes:

Please take a care full at what I am about quote:

greenleaves said:
Lowered image sizes
Click to expand...

No one said to remove all images or content from the site so it's completely useless.

You're usually on the right track with your comments, but then make a crazy comment, that a serious FacePalm.

Start thinking like a marketer/business owner. If you have a location with a bunch of people coming in and out of your store, no matter how long they stay, if they don't buy anything they are worthless. The speed of your site doesn't determine whether your site is relevant and has great content for the user. Your content, images, and videos do. I've got a site coming in above in the top 10%, throwing 1MB of info, with big images and videos at visitors, great content, low bounce rate, and it's super fast.

I am advocating compressing, and uses techniques to reduce the packet sizes, removing un-necessary plugins, and IF NEED BE social noise, that leads people to Facebook and twitter, and away from the goal of a website, to sell. It's all about the user experience on your website versus the competition. If you need social on your site, then have it.

You seem to have a mentality that if you reduce the amount of data going to a visitor, that also correlates to the visitor having a less richer experience, which is incorrect.
 
I just moved a certain website off a VPS at Wiredtree to KNOWNHOST, and for $50 a month, it's smoking fast, and their support is ridiculously good.

You can get like 98% of rackspace service for a fraction of the cost. Rackspace is not intended for the cost sensitive buyer.
 
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