Windows Central website is slow and full of ads

[sejgiul]

Guys, come on now. I've been a long-time visitor to WP Central, but the website is turning into a real piece of something you find under your shoe. Loading times (on different networks and devices) are beyond ridiculous now. It just took me almost 4 minutes to get to this point in order to make a forum post...

As I'm a web developer myself, I can see where it's going wrong. The numerous calls to google's and yahoo's ad services are the main thing slowing the website down apart from errors in the actual coding of the website. The front page took almost 100 seconds to load, that's more than 1 and a half minute!

I would seriously sack whoever is in charge of the website, because they're doing a terrible job.

I really hope the website is going to be improved over time, because I'm fed up of visiting and waiting. I can get my news fix elsewhere, so that's not a problem.

 

[James Falconer]

Thank you for stepping up to make sure your voice is heard... we DO hear you loud and clear.

Trust me, ad issues and slow load times are critically important to us. I understand the frustration and encourage you to contact me directly (my email is below) with specific details on the issues you bring about. The more specific you can be, the better... chances are I'll have more questions about your browser, device(s), etc... to help narrow things down for our tech team.

Bottom line... do reach out, I want to hear from you.

 

[Thomas Jordan]

Guys, come on now. I've been a long-time visitor to WP Central, but the website is turning into a real piece of something you find under your shoe. Loading times (on different networks and devices) are beyond ridiculous now. It just took me almost 4 minutes to get to this point in order to make a forum post...

As I'm a web developer myself, I can see where it's going wrong. The numerous calls to google's and yahoo's ad services are the main thing slowing the website down apart from errors in the actual coding of the website. The front page took almost 100 seconds to load, that's more than 1 and a half minute!

I would seriously sack whoever is in charge of the website, because they're doing a terrible job.

I really hope the website is going to be improved over time, because I'm fed up of visiting and waiting. I can get my news fix elsewhere, so that's not a problem.

This is so true.

 

[Plantje]

I completely agree with this. Content wise I love Windows Central, but the load times really make it pretty much unusable. I notice that if I see something interesting in Feedly that appears on Windows Central I mark the topic as unread and star it. Then I first wait and see if Neowin, Gottabemobile, UMPCPortal, Tweakers (Netherlands) etc has written an article about and then read that one. Only if Windows Central is the only site that has an article on the subject I'll go into Windows Central...yes, it is that bad

 

[rdubmu]

Maybe it is time to upgrade your internet connection. Here in Seattle, WA it took me 5 seconds or less to load wpcental. ESPN took slightly longer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tgp]

Thank you for stepping up to make sure your voice is heard... we DO hear you loud and clear.

Trust me, ad issues and slow load times are critically important to us.

Why is this an issue only on this site? I don't believe I've heard a single complaint about these issues on any of the other Mobile Nation forums.

I suspect it has to do with the browsers used. On Windows Central, most users are probably using Internet Explorer, whose ad blocking isn't as straightforward. On the other forums, most users are probably using Chrome and/or Firefox, both of which have an abundance of ad blocker plugins.

 

[realwarder]

The site is slow to load on IE. On a 50/10 Mbps Comcast cable link.

If I don't use ad blocking it is super slow. So WC is losing ad hits because we have to block ads to make the site work at an acceptable speed...

 

[realwarder]

Many ad services take 10 SECONDS to load.... and you add a bunch of those up == VERY SLOW SITE

 

[realwarder]

So many!!!

 

[realwarder]

Site contains basic HTML errors.

Edit: Note, HTML errors are important to fix because web browsers have to 'guess' on the HTML which often requires waiting for more of the page to load and so slows down page rendering

 

[realwarder]

Here are the content loads orders by time - there are a LOT of slow loads. All ad junk.

 

[realwarder]

When you enable IE tracking protection, we see WC then becomes the slowest items to load. So the page loads in a few seconds rather than > 40 seconds.

 

[Plantje]

Maybe it is time to upgrade your internet connection. Here in Seattle, WA it took me 5 seconds or less to load wpcental. ESPN took slightly longer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't have any issues on other sites! Yes, I use IE on one hand because I don't see the need for using Chrome or Firefox and on the other hand, because my Windows RT device doesn't support other browsers. And to be quite frank: I feel Windows Central should be optimized for IE usage!

And this site is slow on all my devices...phones, tablets, laptops, full desktop pc's etc.

 

[tgp]

When you enable IE tracking protection, we see WC then becomes the slowest items to load. So the page loads in a few seconds rather than > 40 seconds.

I normally use Chrome with Adblock Plus, and WC works perfectly. It loads as fast as any other similar website. I only notice the problem when I go on the site from a different computer without ad blocking.

 

[Dusan Randj]

Yeah, it's very slow to load. I guess that's the cost of free sites. They have to earn money somehow.

 

[realwarder]

I normally use Chrome with Adblock Plus, and WC works perfectly. It loads as fast as any other similar website. I only notice the problem when I go on the site from a different computer without ad blocking.

Yes, it is definitely the ads. But doesn't this defeat the point of adding them? I mean if the site is so slow because of ads, many users will either get frustrated and not use the site, or block the ads, both of which equal less revenue for WC...

edit: James really needs to find out WHY all these ad services are taking so long to load. 7 seconds per ad resource load is simply unacceptable!

 

[tgp]

Yes, it is definitely the ads. But doesn't this defeat the point of adding them? I mean if the site is so slow because of ads, many users will either get frustrated and not use the site, or block the ads, both of which equal less revenue for WC...

Exactly! More is less...

 

[mary beth hale]

Have to use Chrome to navigate Windows Central on my laptop. Loading times are horrible when I use IE for the site.

 

[realwarder]

Thank you for stepping up to make sure your voice is heard... we DO hear you loud and clear.

Trust me, ad issues and slow load times are critically important to us. I understand the frustration and encourage you to contact me directly (my email is below) with specific details on the issues you bring about. The more specific you can be, the better... chances are I'll have more questions about your browser, device(s), etc... to help narrow things down for our tech team.

Bottom line... do reach out, I want to hear from you.

James. I posted some evidence of slow page/ad loads showing which services are causing the issues. Let us know if you need more information, but I don't think it's hard to see why the website is slow. This is standard Win8.1 with standard IE11 on a fast connection.

 

[Plantje]

Yes, it is definitely the ads. But doesn't this defeat the point of adding them? I mean if the site is so slow because of ads, many users will either get frustrated and not use the site, or block the ads, both of which equal less revenue for WC...

edit: James really needs to find out WHY all these ad services are taking so long to load. 7 seconds per ad resource load is simply unacceptable!

I completely agree with you! This has been going on for quite awhile now and seems to be getting worse and worse! I really don't mind some ads and I understand everyone wants to make a living, but this is becoming unacceptable