Web Performance, Branding, and Social Media
In: Internet| Web Performance| Web analytics| WebPerformance.Org| analytics| performance index| search
20 Mar 2009About four years ago, I published/posted a number of indices related to GrabPERF data. This is a re-launch of that, starting with the GrabPERF Search Performance Index.
The methodology of the Search Performance Index is straightforward: A number of key search providers are selected and HTTP GET requests are sent that directly pull the results page [...]
In: GrabPERF| Web Performance| search
16 Mar 2009Today I would like to announce the availability of the GrabPERF Search Performance Index.
The goal of the index is to provide performance metrics for a group of search providers around the world. The results are based on a direct HTTP GET request being made for the search results page by the GrabPERF Agent.
Currently only live [...]
Why GrabPERF?
About four years ago, I had a bright idea that I would like to learn more about how to build and scale a small Web performance measurement platform. I’ve worked in the Web performance industry for nearly a decade now, and this was an experimental platform for me to examine and encounter many of [...]
Introduction to the Series
This is the first of a four-part series focusing on the reasons why companies measure their Web performance. This perspective is substantially different than ones posited by others in the field as they focus on the meat and potatoes reasons, rather than the sometimes more difficult to imagine future effects that measurement [...]
The GrabPERF Black Friday Dashboard is done for another year and there were two performance victims that suffered the most at the hands of the onslaught of bargain-hunters in the area of Web performance.
Some caveats that I need to mention about the GrabPERF measurement methodology.
Only the base HTML file of each site is measured.
Only the [...]
In: Technology| The Web| Web Performance| WebPerformance.Org
22 Sep 2008When starting with new clients, finding the low-hanging fruit of Web performance is often the simplest thing that can be done. By recommending a few simple configuration changes, these early stage clients can often reap substantial Web performance improvement gains.
The harder problem is that it is hard for organizations to build on these early wins [...]
It’s not often as a Web performance consulatant and analyst that I find a book that is useful to so many clients. It’s much more rare to discover a book that can help most Web sites improve their response times and consistency in fewer than 140 pages.
Steve Souders’ High Performance Web Sites (O’Reilly, 2007 – [...]
In: Browsers| Technology| The Web
3 Sep 2008Recently there was an outage at a hit-tracking vendor I was using to track the hits on my externally hosted blog, leaving me with a gap in my visitor data several hours long. While this was an inconvenience for me, I realized that this could be mission critical failure to an online business reliant on [...]
As a Web performance consultant, I view the release of Google Chrome with slightly different eyes than many. And one of the items that I look for is how the browser will affect performance, especially perceived performance on the end-user desktop.
One thing I have been able to determine is that the use of WebKit will [...]
Stephen Pierzchala is one of a cadre of crazy Canucks living in the United States. A 10-year veteran of the Web performance field, Stephen also writes on topics as diverse as branding and reputation, bipolar, and Web technologies.