Doing some web surfing, I have been noticing more and more websites are geared toward broadband. Seems those web sites have intense graphics on their sites that takes a while to download. I think there is a general unwritten rule that a page should load less than 30 seconds or you will you lose your visitor. This is why TWGazette is pretty basic with very little graphics other than my banners above. I don’t even use a background graphic or use tables with image buttons. And while this page does load a bit longer now that my old news are piling up, I plan to archive very soon.But it seems certain commercial websites are following the 30 second rule all right – for broadband. My kids have a tough time waiting for nick.com to load for example. Even subsequent visits to the site with certain aspects already in the cache takes a while to load. Flash multimedia seems to be one of  the biggest culprits. The thing takes minutes to load a simple animation.

At least you Trade Warriors with websites are good about keeping graphics to a limit on your respective websites. If you use a graphic background, keep the same background on all pages so that once the initial page loads, the background will be in the cache and all subsequent loads will be faster.

Yes, the day is going to come where dial up will become obsolete and broadband will be the standard. But right now, dial up is still the most widely used form of internet access and if you are on broadband and have a lot of graphics or use midi files or use flash on your website, either use a dial up account to view the page or ask a friend with dial up to view the page to see how fast it loads. Then make adjustments. 

Another option is making two types of pages – one for dial up users with limited graphics, and another page for broadband users with all the bells and whistles. If there is a script that can detect the type of connection a person is using in the same way a script detects your browser type, the type of page that loads should be automatic. Otherwise, 2 links on a splash page is all that is needed to do the job.

End of rant.