People want a fast, fun online experience. Websites that load slowly turn people away, detracting from the fun and makes the user impatient. It takes more than a registry cleaner to speed up a computer, and more than CSS sprites to make servers load content faster. The JC Penney fiasco is a prime example of how to ruin the online experience for everyone.
When NYT reporter David Segal investigated JC Penney, he found thousands of spam-laden blogs linking to them. When Google found out, JC Penney disappeared from the top results. They were penalized regardless of whether or not they were the culprits. This also happens to websites that exist in a bad online neighborhood of spammers and click rings.
The dirty tactics they used to cheat Google damaged businesses and customers directly. By cheating their way to the top of Google results, JC Penney enjoyed traffic their competitors could have had, and reduced customers’ chances of finding better products.
From running a website to just browsing, here are five ways to have a faster server and a faster browser, sans JC Penney-like tactics, enhancing the online experience for all.
speed up your computer
1. Check for Shady Links
Are shady sites pointing to you? People will click on those links to find your site, but will become discouraged when those links take forever to load. Link management tools like IBP let you browse for warning signs so you can take corrective action if necessary. If two or more suspects share Google AdSense codes, they may be connected.
2. Pipelining, Firebug & YSlow
Opera users, disregard this tip; Opera pipelines by default. IE users, download and try Firefox. You won’t be disappointed. This little hack focuses on the maxrequests variable, which allows browsers to make simultaneous requests to a server, instead of requesting page elements one at a time. This hastens page loads.
Open a Firefox tab and type about:config, then type network.http.pipelining in the “Filter:” box. Network.http.pipelining should be “true.” Network.http.pipelining.maxrequests should be “8.” If necessary, right click and choose Modify to change it. These values are defaults in Firefox 4.0.1.
Firebug is an Add-on that inspects HTML, debugs JavaScript, and allows you to modify layout or style. YSlow suggests performance improvements with rulesets – either your own or three predefined ones. YSlow also incorporates JSLint and Smush.it for further optimization options.
3. Reduce HTTP Requests
These are smart tactics JC Penney could have used to attract business, minus the skullduggery. Multiple HTTP requests can be merged by combining each script into a single script. Do the same for CSS stylesheets. Merge inline images into a cached stylesheet. Combine images into image maps, but not for navigation bars. CSS sprites, with the “background-position” and “background-image” properties, reduce image requests. Many visitors land on your page with a clean cache; give them a speedy first visit.
4. Hostnames per IP, Keepalives
Pipelining browsers like Opera and Firefox do not benefit from an IP with multiple hostnames because they are using all the bandwidth they can. Chances are good that a percentage of your visitors are not pipelining and can benefit from these tactics.
Pages hosting most objects 8kb and smaller, if they have four hostnames for their IP, can double visitor bandwidth. Users with moderate to fast bandwidth farther away from a site benefit generously from servers that use four hostnames per IP.
Settling on a Keepalive time is tricky. What size files are hosted? Are static files hosted on just one machine? Trial and error is the best way to determine optimal values.
5. Informative, Speedy Redirects
404 – Page Not Found. A 404 acts as a red traffic light, but you can turn that light green. Hundreds of strategic 404 page examples abound online; find one to inspire your own.
Once upon a time, JC Penney ranked #1 for lots of keywords. They now rank 68th, 73rd, and lower. Bad for them and the millions they spend on AdWords, but good for the lessons their misfortune teaches. Don’t let your website be devalued for bad links. Evaluate your neighborhood. Tweak your site for browser-friendliness. Faster servers and browsers create a better online experience overall.
Incoming search terms:
- basic things to make a pc run
- start with a simple stuff in computer
- firefox wont open graphics on the jcpenney site
- How to get faster internet
- how to make machine with simple things
- jcpennys website wont work in firefox
- name 4 things make up a computer
- simple things to help run computer faster
Related posts:
- What Can Computer Work Really Do To Your Eyes? We all do it: staring at our...
- 4 Things You Can Do to Become a Successful ClickBank Affiliate If you don’t have any product or...
- 5 Ways to Make Money Online Want to make money online? Here are...
- Top 10 SEO things NOT to do 1. Hide text Using the same colors,...
- How Can I Make Money Online? Please Help! [ad] With the depressing economic state, and...
Wow, imagine what JCpenny was thinking when they lost all their domination on the search engines
jasmine´s last [type] ..3rd Anniversary Gifts [http://www.theanniversaryrose.com/store/c/26-3rd-Anniversary-Leather.aspx]
Thanks for sharing this great idea.
In my PC the problem is when I try to open Firefox it will be hanging.When I’ll going to check my driver memory it become more slow if I didn’t close any windows. Will you tell me on what I’ll going to do by this?
Bryan S´s last [type] ..Sim Cards [http://www.buysimcard.co.uk/]
Firefox often has quite a memory consumption, so that may be the problem, and adding more RAM to your computer can help that.
If you can’t even get it to start up, you may want to try re-installing it, as it may be corrupted.
Whenever someone asks me how they can speed up their computer, i always tell them to instal Linux. The only reason i’m not using it is because i need Photoshop and a couple of other programs that don’t yet run on Linux.
Antonia´s last [type] ..The Power Of Conversational Hypnosis Review [http://www.conversationalhypnosis101.net/power-of-conversational-hypnosis-review]
Lol, that is indeed the very same thing I say
I have two Linux machines running, 1 Fedora Raid 5 file server, and 1 Kubuntu working machine. However, I also need Photoshop and such, thus I’m also an avvid MacOs X user (which I like very much too!!).
Haven’t tried MacOs yet, mostly because i don’t have the hardware, but it would be interesting to use 3+ operating systems
)
Well, you really should give it a try! Once you go Mac, you’ll never go back
I was getting a bit annoyed with Firefox 3 as it was pretty slow compared to Chrome but once 4 came out it became very fast. I believe they changed their Javascript engine for FF4.
Not sure what they did, but it sure worked!