Flag images alternative options

[Snake]

Hi there,

Because Google is getting so hot on web page speed i have been running test on my site.

40% of load time is down to loading the 30 or so translator flag images.

This is not a bug or fault just a quest to have a fast site.

What alternatives are there to combat this?

I tried the drop down menu but do not believe Google can crawl the links.

Could we/you convert the current flags to css sprites so they load as one image rather than 30 separate images?

Any other options welcome please.

Thanks.

[vBET]

Please note that your results are not representative. Any browser after first visit on your forum have cached images and do NOT take those again (only if its external cache expires, or you force it like shift+F5 in IE). So what you measured is the time of first visit. Having images do not affect response time of next requests.

So flags takes 0% of page loading time for most of request which comes to your forum.

Google can crawl links in droop down menu, because those are simply included in HTML output (you can check it) - so Google see it and crawls it just like any other of your links.

We already get feature request to support css sprites - please see here discussion about this topic: http://www.vbenterprisetranslator.co...ss-sprite.html

For other options - you can just eliminate all flags images and show test links. To do that it is enough to edit template for flags. Please note that droop down menu do not use template and at this moment requires code modification. We can give you details if you are interested

PS.
Are you sure that Google robots are downloading images and not simply check the text view of page?

[Snake]

Ive got the drop down showing in the footer template.

This is what code shows in the source.

Can googlebot open the javascript itself? No. It cannot.

This is a big issue, these flags add 50% to page load times in the real word, due to images size, 50 odd connections, lookups etc.

Web Page Analyzer - free website optimization tool website speed test check website performance report from web site optimization

That website tests html output only, server speed etc is not included.


I get 7s without flags enabled, 14s if i have them enabled.

That is huge, they are bad and you really need a better solution.

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a id="vbettranslations" href="http://www.computer-juice.com/forums/$show[nojs_link]#vbettranslations" accesskey="5">Translations</a> <script type="text/javascript"> vbmenu_register("vbettranslations"); </script></td>

[vBET]

Please note that we already gave you link to page about this issue and information that we are aware about other flags solutions possibility and consider it already. Thanks that you want to show us how important you think it is

Also please note that Google doesn't have to open any javascript and see all flags which are in drop down menu. The code which you gave is for browsers and it changes drop down menu to make it visible for users. All bots see it immediately because drop down menu is included in HTML output (not taken by Ajax) - just please find in your HTML output this:

<div class="vbmenu_popup" id="vbettranslations_menu" style="display:none;margin-top:3px" align="left">

And you will see that drop down is included in HTML output and robots see all the flags, just browsers doesn't show it at the begging because of style display:none and script which you pointed is only for browsers to make it visible.

I checked your page in web analyzer which you gave and the results are drastically different that which you gave here.
HTML load: 0.46 second
Total images load: 3.51 second (including all images not only flags).

And please note once again that you are interpreting results in wrong way, because you miss the concept of web browsers cache. Web browsers are caching images and do not ask for those in next requests. So time added by flags download is minimal for your users which are watching hundreds of your pages and took flags at the beginning. I already point your attention on this and you can check it yourself just going to your own forum and seeing that you are not waiting seconds for any image but have it immediately.

Still we are aware that our users would like to have also other option for flags and we will test solution proposed in thread which I pointed you before.

[Ramses]

Hi there,

Because Google is getting so hot on web page speed i have been running test on my site.

40% of load time is down to loading the 30 or so translator flag images.

This is not a bug or fault just a quest to have a fast site.

What alternatives are there to combat this?

I tried the drop down menu but do not believe Google can crawl the links.

Could we/you convert the current flags to css sprites so they load as one image rather than 30 separate images?

Any other options welcome please.

Thanks.

I could reduce the flags from overall size 18kb to 6kb, just save the images with higher compression settings.

[vBET]

I could reduce the flags from overall size 18kb to 6kb, just save the images with higher compression settings.

What tool do you suggest?

[Ramses]

What tool do you suggest?

I used Photoshop.