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If your web page does not load in 4 seconds, kiss your visitors goodbye

akamai.com — Four seconds is the maximum length of time an average online shopper will wait for a Web page to load before potentially abandoning a retail site. This is one of several key findings revealed in a report made available today by Akamai, commissioned through JupiterResearch, that examines consumer reaction to a online shopping experience

Bury

mklopez 2 years 14 days ago, made popular 2 years 14 days ago

1097 diggs
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101 Comments
Who Dugg It?

yyanri, on 10/12/2007, -8/+19Did you know akamai is a hawaiian word?
Aloha
- nreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -28/+3did you know raisin is an english word?
  
  what does it mean!?!?!?!!? science-damn you for not explaining further.
- thelastknowngod, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4@ nreynolds
  
  akamai delivers content across the internet. that is what apple uses for itunes and any other QT stuff they may push. of course... akamai has nothing to do with this topic at all.
  
  i usually close any page from digg after a second or two and then just look for the mirror.
- Celeron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You learn something new each day.
- lazydrumhead, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6I just heard digg say "mwah"
- pwill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@lazydrumhead:
  
  Same here. Digg loads in 5-7 seconds for me, on a 5Mb/s connection.
  Kevin, you guys need some more servers :(
- cooldudevamsee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21@iamcitizen
  No keven needs to strip out 200KB+ non cacheable css and images per page.
- r2d7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Jupiter Media load their pages with so much advertising you're looking at far in excess of 4 seconds just to queue all the different images/scripts/etc for their crap.
  
  For example: http://www.flashkit.com
  
  I'm highly sceptical of this "4 second rule". Google's the only site I use that takes less than 4 seconds to load. Amazon and eBay don't seem to be affected by it, and I think they're in a better position to judge reactions than Jupiter Media who specialise in aquiring popular sites and then ad-raping them.
- RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Thats why you make a shiny hilarious! dare I say Zany!! Loading bar...
- hrdcregmer808, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2took 6.470s for me according to faster fox
- cds0528, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Funny, Digg took 20.2 seconds to load (according to fasterfox) and the page this story is on took 2.7 seconds to load...
- crumbelievable, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5good thing digg ain't retail. 20.2 seconds is a small price to pay for my digg addiction.
- sippit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I always thought Akamai was a name of a founder of something. What does it mean?
- rspeed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ nreynolds
  
  Uh... actually, raisin is a French word. I wouldn't be surprised if they got it from Latin. So what's your point?
- DuoPros, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3OpenDNS.org
  Makes everything load in about 2 seconds.
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"akamai has nothing to do with this topic at all."
  
  they have everything to do with it, since the likely reason why Akamai even published this was to raise awareness of their service.
- brundlefly76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its funny because the only website I use *regularly* that frequently takes over 4 seconds to load is a digg page - and I'm on FTTH...
- jeffreym, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That includes digg.com?
- L0t3k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2
  I was wondering how many Fasterfox references I'd see.
  
  This page: 5.4 seconds
  Amazon: Just shy of 12
  
  Apparently 4 seconds isn't a real solid figure. ;)
- Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Hell Digg needs to totally re-design their website. It's got way too many images, stylesheets and javascripts (too many HTTP requests), and the vast amounts of ads are just beating it on the ground. Also the javascript for showing buried comments doesn't work under Linux :P
- psygnisfive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Digg.com loads in under a second for me on Firefox for the Mac. But I'm on a university network with UPLOAD speeds just shy of 1 megabyte per second so..
- traherom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@Xilon
  
  Get a new freakin' browser then... works fine for me under Firefox and Opera.
Vitius, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6If someone can't read your article in under a minute, kiss your readers goodbye. (otherwise I guess it was well written)
- dionjuan2004, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think vitius has a point, sometimes it is impossible for me to understand why some comment has been digged negative. Go to cnn.com, for every story - right on the top of the stody they've this really cool box showing "Story highlights" which sums up the story. I think part of this must be due to the fact that people dont want to spent much time on a story only to find its not really useful.
dave_colorado, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18hahah...

and akamai has absolutely NO conflict of interest with the speed of your webpages loading
- MoneyShot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Just because it helps with their sales doesn't mean that it's automatically incorrect. I'm sure seat belt manufacturers have done studies and proven that seat belts save lives. Does that automatically mean their conclusions are worthless?
  
  Of course the axiom "consider the source" always should be kept in mind, but you also have to apply a critical mind to first *what* the source is saying. Examine the evidence, not the motivations. If it's solid research, it should speak for itself.
- cwalk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I completely agree with dave_colorado. This article almost seems like covert spam. They tell you that you need to speed up your website, and then discretely mention that "Akamai® is the leading global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online."
- dave_colorado, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4@moneyshot...
  
  i like your comments you've made in this thread. you stand up for akamai like it was a person.
  
  do you work for akamai?
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3there's def a conflict of interest here but there probably is also a lot of truth to the study.
- Chewie67, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@dave_colorado - "and akamai has absolutely NO conflict of interest with the speed of your webpages loading"
  
  Exactly what I was thinking. These folks sell services to help speed up web sites. Of course they would say that speed matters. REPORTED AS SPAM.
  
  They're right -- to a point -- but I think it's much higher than 4 seconds. My wife, my mom, my aunt -- they all buy tons of stuff online, and they would wait a full minute before abandoning the site.
  
  This article is crap.
501337, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31Website speed test - http://www.vertain.com/?sst

URL: http://www.digg.com
Speed: 4.84 sec (see details below)
Compare to: 2.79 sec (our current benchmark average).

If Digg ever starts selling anything, count me out.
- choicetoes, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1If digg ever stops selling anything (ads), count its VCs out. Nice handle, btw.
- dustyshadow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Digg is actually quite slow for me no matter what connection I'm on. In fact, it actually took close to 15 seconds for this page to load. Refreshing the comments page seems to always take forever.
- dustyshadow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From that site:
  
  Will my users see the kind of speed reported here?
  No! Your users (except those with T3 connections) will experience significantly lower speed than the result reported by this test, due to their slower connection. For example, a 56 Kbps modem connection will degrade the speed by a factor of about 100, and a residential DSL connection by a factor of about 60.
- carapi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2dusty...so that site is saying that the average page should take 2 1/2 minutes to load on a residential DSL connection?
- Flashman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3One... two... three... four... that's it, I'm leaving Digg forever.
  
  /obviously not true
- DigeratiPrime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think digg is slow due to all the javascript that is used. If I disable it with NoScript it loads much faster, only downside it I cannot digg/bury.
- worxman02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just started using OpenDNS and I loaded Digg in 2.19 secs according to thats speed test. Link to results: http://www.vertain.com/m.q?req=cstr&reqid=d9yDBqsA
  
  URL: http://digg.com
  Speed: 2.19 sec (see details below)
  Compare to: 2.79 sec (our current benchmark average).
arrenlex, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26This doesn't really apply anymore -- tabbed browsing means users typically middle-click several results, and by the time they've clicked the last item in their list, the first has long since loaded, and by the time they get to the last tab it in turn has long since loaded.
- milomilomilo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16i actually had no idea middle clicking opened a link in a new tab, I've always right click>open in new tab.
  
  thanks man, learned something new.
- xtr3m, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Not entirely correct. I believe the majority of web users are yet to discover the wonders of tabs and IE7 might help with it.
- mercurysquad, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I can't live without middle-click-new-tabs, and scroll wheels. Especially Gnome-style scroll-wheel'ing where you don't need to CLICK a widget give it focus before scrolling.
- stonr, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1ctrl-T
- Porchman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3While not everyone has heard of tabbed browsing there is a reason it came about. I used to open up several browser windows in the days of dial up so I could read one page while another loaded. I'm patient enough to let a page load but if I can't find what I'm looking for on a page in a short amount of time I'll go back to my search engine results.
- carapi, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Really? Do you have any...I mean ANY...actual evidence to prove that more than an insignificant number of people do this? And no...saying "My friends and I all do it" is not eveidnce.
- dionjuan2004, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1wow!! i just learned i could just middle click to open links in a new tab!! i must be a jerk to do right click and then open in a new tab all this while. thanks arrenlex.
- PhantomZmoove, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1CTRL left click also works for new tab. I use my middle button for double click. Which kinda sucks when I load any FPS cause then I have to change it. Eh, still works out to be less effort in the end.
- javip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@crapapi
  
  I think the fact that he's being dugg up and you're being dugg down should answer your question =)
- woodan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0But digg users make up a small percent of the Internet.
ImTheDarkcyde, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3customers, not visitors
victorminC, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I waited 6 seconds for that page to load completely (and there's supposed to be a caching server right at my ISP)... Good bye Akamai.
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1If Akamai takes 6 seconds to load, it's your connection's fault, not Akamai's.
Renton, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Digg takes over 10 seconds to get to the main page in firefox.
- smb3d, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2Are you on a 9600 baud modem?
- mercurysquad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Not 10 sec, but digg definitely is way slower than most other sites with heavy content. Most of it is text anyway, I wonder why it's still slow. And I'm on a double-digit Mbps connection.
- dustyshadow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Digg is slow because its advertisers are slow and the site is coded in a way that makes it wait for the advertiser's servers before it loads the entire page. Watch the status bar the next time you load a digg page.
- psygnisfive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I get under a second downloads for Digg.com on Stony Brook University's network.
warbird, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2in 98, the magic number was about 10 sec. I guess everyone wants things faster today. I usually give a site 10+ secs to load tho, even though I'm on dsl now, and not 28.8k modem like in 98...
pvtjohndoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Though it's not a retail site, I think Digg is an exception to the 4-second rule. It takes between 6 and 10 second for each Digg page to load on my PC...but I'm still here.
henrah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Among other things, I think this is a pretty savage indictment against using the larger, multi-file javascript libraries (YUI, dojo -- even prototype to some extent). The traditional argument in favor of their architecture has been that you only need to load the JS files once, and then they're cached -- but since external javascript tags block page repainting, visibility and response, even if only for a few seconds, that initial pageload could mean the difference between finding a customer and losing one.
- MoneyShot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Even the largest JS libraries I use are tiny compared to even a moderately sized image; prototype, for example, is only 16k. My advice is to optimize your images a bit tighter (or eliminate some of them) before you start ditching libraries. They're just too handy.
- henrah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@MoneyShot:
  
  Yeah, absolutely -- libraries are basically indispensable; you can't ditch them altogether. It is impractical and pointless to code a medium-sized site without using a library of some kind, be it an in-house shortcuts solution or a fuller-featured offering like Prototype.
  
  I personally am a huge fan of the current open-source crop, including Prototype -- and as you say, it's really not big at all in real terms. What concerns me is the pattern of interdependent JS includes on every page, particularly the front page, which seems to be gaining traction.
  
  Digg is one example of such bloated and repetitive inclusion patterns, but it is probably exempt from this 4-second 'rule' as a noncommercial community-based discussion site. Most of us here don't mind, but plenty of people have remarked on how long it can take digg pages to load -- or to begin rendering at all. In this case it is the *number* of external script tags which is the bottleneck, and digg is hardly uncommon in this respect.
jbritton, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1A study funded by Akamai (who's business it is to improve page load speed through replication).... this study is self-serving. Not to mention the fact that its on the Akamai website.
- Hellman109, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14 seconds or more and pages annoy me.
  
  Sure my survey sample is one, but it rings true for me.
  
  Exceptions are Dugg sites (although I just hit the mirrors, which are slow anyhow) and flash games and such.
- leftboom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Of course the study is self serving for Akamai! Do you really think that anyone else would do the study? Who else would it benefit? Akamai pays for this study to be completed, but that doesn't make it untrue. And I think that it's really referring to ecommerce not to other types of sites.
  
  If you could go to shoes.com, zappos.com or however many other shoe sites, and one takes 10 seconds to load, you're going to hit your back button and go onto the next result. but yes, Akamai is trying to raise the awareness right before shopping season that page load time is of vital importance.
  
  Keep in mind though that this is true of any CDN, not just akamai, and there are alternatives out there. Ones that are much less expensive and easier to do business with. A friend of mine that works for AdTech said that they recently chose a small NY based company, Panther Express.
Surreptitious, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I still think google is the fastest loading page EVER.
- MoneyShot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11The fact that their homepage loads so quickly is rather meaningless.
  
  What impresses me is that they are able to search an index of over *25 billion* webpages in matter of about 1/10 of a second--and they do it millions of times a day. As a DB developer, that blows my mind.
jcapogna, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It took about 10 seconds to get this article to load. C'mon Digg, more servers!
TheSalmonThief, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Just keep clicking the button and move your finger around on the trackpad, it makes the page load faster.
imyayo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Adding to this, there is also a "3 Click Rule". If the user cannot find the content they are after in 3 or less clicks, kiss your visitor goodbye as well.
- efjenkins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4the rule we followed at ZDnet was 2 clicks and 5 seconds. In those two clicks, the user needs to at least think that they're on the right track or they're gone, and our traffic statistics supported that.
bluebri, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Unless the online store is offering Wii's or PS3's ... people will wait for the page to load for up to a week.
Hamsterpotpies, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Cool! Mine loads in 2 sec, and the server is on a 512 upload DSL modem. HEHE. Faster then digg.
- jcapogna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Thats because you have no traffic.
huhwhathuh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1blarg!!
Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This used to be a standard practice. When I was learning HTML content was key. I could make some fancy flash animation for my site, but I want my visitors to actually stick around long enough to see the site. Photoshop's Save For Web feature comes in very handy. You can also use Irfanview to resave your images without all the data like EXIF that isn't needed.
gandalfan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Its also depend on which browser that you used. How your browser handle these pages. Opera never fail.
thespace, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1marked as spam
spling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hah! Tell that one to Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
r3z0nate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Someone needs to do a study on how long it will take Akami's bloated stock to come tumbling down.

They might have a point, although their opinion is extremely bias. OfficeMax is a perfect example of a site that is PAINFULLY slow and the cart is randomly emptied and probibly does discourage shoppers.
DaysInTheDark, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Digg loads instantaneously for me, always.
Gigliwananacom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I thought the average user no longer wants to see a site if it takes more than 7 seconds to load!? At least that's what my wed development class tells me.

Considering how many people still use A.O.L., cringes at my own past, I can't see a 4 second load time.
DigitalBrian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I dont believe that, if I go to a page I wait way longer than that, I just pull up another page in a new tab, 4 seconds is nothing and 4 seconds I hope we are not talking Dial-up customers here *lol*
briansalo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Pfft... back in my day, we had to wait 20 seconds... we only had 56k and we liked it...
ogletree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have friends I have tried to get to read Digg but they won't because it is way too slow. I personally have never had a problem. I just have normal old time warner. Sites like digg and the other examples can still grow but they will lose readers because of slowness. Imagine how bigg digg would be if it loaded like google.
bobbygeorgina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree, it takes a long time for some websites to load.

Digg takes an awful long time to load in Firefox, it is a bit quicker in Opera though.

Personally I think Firefox takes WAY TOO long to open in the first place...I launch the program and it takes 6 or more seconds to open (which is longer for me than many other programs). - I have Photoshop CS2 starting in under 10 seconds, Adobe AfterEffects starting in under 10 seconds, Opera starting in about 2 seconds, etc. When you think about it Photoshop should take a lot longer to load...at least you would think so, considering all that it is doing (loading fonts, etc); it is sad that Photoshop only takes a few seconds longer to open than Firefox (for me).

Back on topic, I actually switched service providers for hosting my domains...hoping to get faster loading times for my visitors.
vampireblood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is not right at all.

People need to learn to be more patient when waiting for websites to load. Not everyone has access to high-speed broadband etc.
brownspank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If your article has more than one page, kiss your readers goodbye.
osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well I read Digg still, and sometimes it takes FOREVER to load. I can't stop though, I'm addicted.
ajck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Digg is a pain in the arse with it's load times. And I hope someone from Digg is reading this. The servers and connection are fast - it's their page engineering that's the problem. They need to put in place a method for digging up/down and commenting that does not require 10-second page load times and my browser making LOADS of connections to the server.

If the site weren't Digg and thus the content had a high value to me, I would sure have passed on it long ago because of the ***** performance. SORT IT OUT!!
- slashdotislame, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Pass anyway, there are what 100 digg clones?
oniratea, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0oh digg... goodbye *kiss*
M0b1u5, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0What a complete and utter load of *****.

Clearly these ***** have no idea what they are talking about. People do NOT leave a site after 4 seconds of no page showing. That is pure lies.

Jebus H Chribt on a pony - it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see how wrong this is.

Buried as unbelievably stupid. Poster is a moron.
slashdotislame, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1What a load of crap. People wait longer when money is involved.
rivercityjessie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1In TV Production class in high school we were always told you have 6 seconds to get someones attention for a commercial, otherwise they will start flipping channels. But if you were searching for something on a shopping site, you are there on your own free will and obviously want to look at that page. I would think 4 seconds would be a really short amount to wait...but maybe that's just because I had to live with dial-up for so long.
stevespirit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh please! This is so not true. Why do you think they invented tabbed browsing? If a page is taking too long to load, I multitask and open another tab, then go back to the original page later. And I've seen everyone I know do this as well.
roscoetoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I didn't even realize Digg had ads. But then I clicked on my 'NoScript' button(FireFox), and there's the list of 'em all. (Yikes!)
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