Tools To Detect Slow Load Times
Checking for slow load times is important because it causes poor user experience. Many users do not hang around and wait for the website to load. In fact research states that the page or major elements of the page should load within four seconds or the user will quit the page and look for another source. Another reason is that search engines and pay per click advertising hosts will penalize you for slow load times. Google recently stated that it has incorporated this feature in to its quality score matrix. You may also lose out on appearing closer to the top of organic results as well. Thus, load time for your web page is crucial.
There are many free tools that you can use. One of the more popular tools is available at Tools.pingdom.com and gives you a detailed breakdown of elements that load on your website. Run this site test and you can show this report to your developer and have the website optimized to load faster. Another great tool is YSlow which is available as a plug-in for Firefox. This provides a detailed report as well as recommendations on how to improve your website’s performance.
While you optimize your site you should also check with your hosting company to ensure that you have enough bandwidth for your website. Also, if you are on a shared hosting plan, make sure your hosting provider is not overloading the server with other high bandwidth website.