Two small changes on Geekzone... Have you noticed?

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SpookyAwol

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#418892 18-Dec-2010 19:29

I remember the days when we used to code web pages to be 50-100k as people were on dialup. They still complained about slow pages.

Now pages are 500k + (and normally a lot more....) Thats why its a pleasure to read the m.website.com pages.
As a lot more devices are mobile, we need to revisit why we need such code heavy and image heavy web pages just to dish up readable content

freitasm

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#419832 21-Dec-2010 08:30

According to Google Analytics the average time to load a Geekzone page has gone down by almost one second since we changed this.

This is the global average... So I guess New Zealand users are seeing it much faster than this.

Talkiet

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#419856 21-Dec-2010 09:24

freitasm: According to Google Analytics the average time to load a Geekzone page has gone down by almost one second since we changed this.

This is the global average... So I guess New Zealand users are seeing it much faster than this.

Although local caching makes a difference, it appears that your CDN is serving out of LA... any reason it's not got a local pop?

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#419857 21-Dec-2010 09:30

Our pages are optimised to reduce the number of requests to our server, by automatically creating CSS sprites, inline CSS images and more.

With 60% of our traffic coming from outside New Zealand we wanted to give a balance in performance. Our HTML is served locally, resources are served from the CDN (in New Zealand from the LAX POP) and most of these resources have cache instructions to allow for both network and client caching.

Network caching is basically moving those resources to the edge, and if ISPs have proxy servers these resources are most likely to be served locally, not impacting too much where they are coming from after the first request.

Why not a local POP? The CDN serves about 3 - 5 GB a day in traffic. It saves our server bandwith and load. Having a local CDN (New Zealand only) would probably cost a lot more than what we pay now to MaxCDN, and wouldn't give any benefit to our overseas users.

The CDN stats show the LAX POP is the busiest one, followed by Amsterdam.

I am working to create a geo balanced configuration to actually serve directly from our server to New Zealand users, which would reduce page load times locally even more.

Talkiet

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#419860 21-Dec-2010 09:40

freitasm: [snip]
I am working to create a geo balanced configuration to actually serve directly from our server to New Zealand users, which would reduce page load times locally even more.

That's cool, and that was my point - with the focus on improving load times for NZ users I thought this would be an easy hit.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

freitasm

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#419863 21-Dec-2010 09:46

Talkiet:
freitasm: [snip]
I am working to create a geo balanced configuration to actually serve directly from our server to New Zealand users, which would reduce page load times locally even more.

That's cool, and that was my point - with the focus on improving load times for NZ users I thought this would be an easy hit.

Cheers - N

No, it's not an easy hit. It costs at least US$500 for a GSLB service. I am trying to do it by software. Still working on that.

freitasm

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#422793 30-Dec-2010 22:48

Just an update... Since implementing the async script, Google Webmaster reports that an average Geekzone page loads in five seconds - it used to be seven seconds earlier this month, and used to be ten seconds a few months ago.

This number is from the page request to the moment when all elements in the page are loaded - css, scripts, images, etc. This of course includes loading the ads from the scripts.

The HTML itself is now downloaded on average in 350ms, with a min of 264ms and max of 488ms.

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freitasm

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#424277 5-Jan-2011 14:33

Just looked at Google Webmasters, and the average page load time is now 4.8 seconds...

freitasm

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#443118 24-Feb-2011 17:00

freitasm:
Talkiet:
freitasm: [snip]
I am working to create a geo balanced configuration to actually serve directly from our server to New Zealand users, which would reduce page load times locally even more.

That's cool, and that was my point - with the focus on improving load times for NZ users I thought this would be an easy hit.

Cheers - N

No, it's not an easy hit. It costs at least US$500 for a GSLB service. I am trying to do it by software. Still working on that.

Some good news. From today we are using a GSLB, implementing geographic load balancing for our CDN nodes. Basically if you are in New Zealand and Australia then static resources are served directly from our box colocated at Datacom, in Auckland.

Users accessing Geekzone from anywhere else will continue to be served by MAXCDN, our CDN provider.

You can see where the resources are coming from on this page. Also note that even though MAXCDN returns a single IP address, it's actually a network of servers around the world (except AU/NZ). That's why they have low ping times to Amsterdam as well to Chicago for example.

This change brings a reduction of RTT from average 200ms to 3.5ms if you are in Auckland. Wellingtonians should see RTT down to 17ms.

This will certainly improve access to Geekzone even more. And please unblock those ads ;)

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