WPC needs some major-league optimization

[Nerdy Woman]

Thanks again, WPC, for killing the LG saddlebags, but there's more work to be done...

I haven't had much time for internet browsing on my PC lately, but when the opportunity arises, I gravitate to the WPC site (forum reading/posting is easier with a real keyboard)... Frustrated by how slooow my browser is when I visit the WPC site, I did a little experiment. I closed the browser (IE11 Modern) and cleared the cache. I reopened in Bing (my default homepage) and visited several news sites and blogs using the trending menu. Basically, I just randomly went to several websites using only a single browser window. By the time I was at the last site, my RAM usage was 60.x MB.

I repeated the task, closing the browser, clearing the cache, and using a link to WPC's homepage that I have on my start screen, I came directly here. I opened an article, used the link to come over to forums, and opened a post. Again, I used only a single browser window. With a single WPC page loaded in the browser, my RAM usage was 333.x MB!!!

I frequently get hit with long-running script notifications and wait 5-10 seconds for a single WPC webpage to load. My tested internet d/l speed is approximately 12 mbps and I'm using Windows 8.1 on my vintage 2009 Dell with 4 GB RAM. I do have Do Not Track, pop-up and 3rd-party cookie blockers, and other security set on my browser, but I've added WPC to the whitelist. Only AT&T rivals you guys for a slow-to-load website.

I understand needing to monetize the site, but perhaps you should look at the CTR on ads. Unless your arrangement with advertisers is PPV instead of PPC, they aren't paying for the resulting bad performance of the WPC website and they are costing you users. Were it not for the awesome content provided by Rubino and company, you could close it down.

 

[James Falconer]

Thanks a bunch for the feedback and the screenshots here... VERY helpful.

I'll get this over to our ad partner to take a look. I know from time to time I have run into the exact same issue. There's probably just a bad ad in the system somewhere that is mucking things up!

 

[Nerdy Woman]

BTW, watching through the day today... AT&T ads seem to be the sloooow loaders. I'm not surprised. A visit to their website is something I dread like root canal procedure. It wouldn't be so bad if they were static, but every page change puts me through the process all over again.

Just out of curiosity, I pulled up my stopwatch app and clicked a link to a thread I'd visited before. Are you ready for this? 47.5 seconds until the page had finished loading and I was able to scroll down the page. 47.5 seconds. There was an ATT banner across the top and an ATT square to the right. Of course, these are the same ads I see on every other page, but they must run in a script that has to play through again and again and again and again and again for every view, without caching.

 

[tgp]

James, I hate to do it, but this site is forcing me to use an ad blocker addon. I use Chrome with an ad blocker, and it works great! I often have 15 - 20 tabs open with WPCentral threads I want to read, and Chrome remains nice & quick. The site was virtually unusable before.

 

[James Falconer]

Thanks again for reporting. Best thing we can all do is report and screencap any ads that are causing issues. That way I can alert our partner to address/fix any problems! Will do the same with the one you pointed out above.

 

[James Falconer]

James, I hate to do it, but this site is forcing me to use an ad blocker addon. I use Chrome with an ad blocker, and it works great! I often have 15 - 20 tabs open with WPCentral threads I want to read, and Chrome remains nice & quick. The site was virtually unusable before.

If you're able to locate the cause (slow loading ad?) of any problems, please do share with me. I need to show some evidence of problems in all cases... in my case I've had no issues with popups, only the occasional slow loading ad.

 

[Nerdy Woman]

If you're able to locate the cause (slow loading ad?) of any problems, please do share with me. I need to show some evidence of problems in all cases... in my case I've had no issues with popups, only the occasional slow loading ad.

Early this morning, I was browsing forum posts and noticed a tremendous difference when LG ads are displayed rather than ATT (I didn't time it, but I'd say definitely under 10 seconds vs. ATT ads at nearly 50 seconds?). I'm sure ATT is a great source of revenue, but they aren't playing nice here. If they've specified certain times of day for their ads to run, I may avoid the site during those hours just to preserve my sanity.