In article ,
Jeff P. wrote:
Dreamweaver gives an estimated load time for your pages but I test them
anyway with my auxilary dial up line that Roadrunner provides. I've found
the times in Dreamweaver quite accurate. My goal is to keep all load times
in the 15 to 25 second range for a 56k connection.



A few pieces of advice:

1) Make sure any 'home'-type page(s) load _fast_. i.e., about 25Kbyte
*max*. 'Instant gratification' _is_ important for retaining the first-
time vistor.
2) Anything 'big' (i.e., over 25-50k) put a parenthetical after the link
that gives the approx. 'size' (in kbytes) of the page data. This is
called 'managing expectations' -- when people _know_ 'in advance' how
long they'll have to wait they tend to be much more tolerant of delays.
*AND*, those who know that they don't have the patience won't even _try_
the page.
3) consider putting up 'parallel' pages for low-speed, and high-speed,
access. If you're careful to make all the links on the page 'relative',
you can accomplish this by changing _only_ the 'base' tag at the top
of the page.
4) You can get amazing savings by reducing the number of 'colors' used in
an image. and JPGs are not always smaller than GIFs -- especially where
"thumbnails" are concerned. A *sixteen* color GIF may be entirely
adequate for a 'preview' shot.
5) consider using "frames". to allow _selective_re-drawing_ of *partial*
page content.



One other consideration is the _outbound_ bandwidth from your weh-server.
If you're running it at the end of a DSL/cable connection, the 'upload'
speed limits of that connection can become a real problem. Especially if
multiple people hit the site at 'more-or-less' the same time.

If you've got a link with a 384K 'upload' speed, then *six* simultaneous
requests for a circa 150kbyte ("20 seconds at 56k") page will result in
20-second 'load' times for _all_ the viewers. EVEN those with _multi-megabit_
'download' capabilities.