subject: Some Insights To Help Website Performance [print this page] Avoid Redirections: If youve ever typed in an outdated web link, you may have seen the 301 or 302 status code. This will take the user to the URL that is specified in the location field defined. Redirects slow down performance time because nothing else can be done, no page rendering or component downloads until the HTML document has arrived.
A common redirect problem is a rather subtle one:The hanging blackslash (/) on a URL address. For instance, going to "www.foo.org/NewPage" maybe incorrect, but will send the user to " www.foo.org/NewPage/" instead. The delay in the redirection can degrade the user experience due to slower performance.
Ditch the 404s This close relative to redirection issue, the dreaded 404 is the dead link that is not redirected. Mr. Souders is fond of this one. Getting a dead link is a bit like taking a $50 cab ride to your favorite restaurant and finding a vacant lot where it used to be. Any HTTP request is considered an expensive one in resource terms, so you can imagine that making a HTTP request and getting a 404 response is particularly heinous. Check your links while coding and ensure that dead ends are removed as soon as possible.
Don't forget to Flush the Buffer, please It can take from 200 to 500ms from the time a user requests a page to the back end server delivers everything needed for the user to see it. Since the browser can sit idling while waiting for the information to arrive, a flush action (PHP function flush()) allows for a partial response. In this way, the browser can fetch components for what you have downloaded, while the rest is on the way.
