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Comment by kenjackson | Hacker News Reader

I too work with sites hitting high visitor count but I have to agree there with the article. Most .Net people I've interviewed think page load speed doesn't matter.

I find this shocking and somewhat unbelievable. My wife, who isn't a tech person at all thinks that page load speed matters (she just called so I asked her) -- and sites gmail as an example of a page that takes too long to load (I think that "loading..." indicator actually brings their load time to the forefront, although it really isn't that long).

I just have trouble seeing a .NET developer saying "for high volume sites page load speed doesn't matter", when most people who aren't in the tech industry would concede that it does.

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It does but I think you misunderstood the point.

Most .Net developers are working on intranet sites. They don't have problem with large footprint pages.

When they move to internet and public domain websites, they are newbies. It takes them a while to adjust to the way internet sites are written. SEO optimizations, CDN usage, Ajax calls etc are pretty important on internet site than on intranet site.

Imagine using a Update Panel to code for an internet website. It would create enough junk javascript to delay a page load but it works fine on intranet. To fix this jQuery or some other Javascript framework must be brought in.

The way you said it originally made it sound more like they simply don't think it matters. I think what you really mean is what you said here. They are newbies when dealing with high volume sites where page load time is critical.

IMO, that's a very different statement. One is a difference in experience with a domain, the other is ideological.

Well, that's why if you're looking for a business model, here's something that works -- take intranet applications people commonly use and release alternatives that do not suck so much.

Companies like 37signals are doing it successfully ;)

I don't think they mean like that. If something is obviously slow its a problem regardless. However, especially when you have a certain number of users, even a fraction of a second faster load time can have a visible change in your analytics.

I've read before that Facebook has shown that users tend to spend a fixed amount of time on their site. Once users hit that time limit, they're done. If your site exhibits similar usage patterns, the faster your pages load (even if they're already fast), the more users can get done on your site, which, depending upon your revenue model, may result in more revenue.

That information about fixed time usage is interesting. But even with that aside, doesn't everyone know that fraction of a second decreases in load time is important for high volume sites?

For example, MySpace was getting at one point 24 billion page views per month. If you could reduce each page view by 1/100th of a second you save 40 weeks per month for your users (assuming the model where they look at a fixed number of pages).

In the Facebook model, if you assume a page comes up in half a second, this delay results in a 2% decrease in page views -- which is a pretty huge deal when your business model indirectly revolves around page views.

I guess my point is that even for people who come from a background where page load didn't matter. it would take 30s to point out it does, and I don't think you'd get any pushback.

* you save 40 weeks per month for your users*

that sounds big and important, but it doesnt really mean much does it?

the difference between a 1/100th of a second and 2/100th's of a second is too small to translate to enough time to get any increase in productivity.

There must be someother reason that load time is that crucial.

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