

The North Face website speed case study. - dunkjmcd
http://www.bulletbits.com/case-study-north-face/

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MJR
27 JS files including jQuery and Prototype!? Someone at North Face needs to do
some refactoring, minify their code and figure out how to use one library
instead of two.

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aresant
Building on this - everything you ever wanted to know about website speed and
its impact on conversion rate:

[http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2010/06/15/everything-
you...](http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2010/06/15/everything-you-wanted-
to-know-about-web-performance/)

------
minouye
Quick summary of the author's recommendations:

1\. Consolidate separate JS files

2\. Use a single image sprite

3\. Load elements from a separate domain

4\. Set max-age header for files to at least an hour

Any idea of what kind of performance bump could I expect from implementing
this (assuming a similar profile to The North Face example)? I'd be interested
in retooling some projects, but I'd only put in the time if the differences
are material.

~~~
gruseom
The definitive treatment of every item on that list, and more, is Steve
Souders' book ([http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Web-Sites-
Essential/d...](http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Web-Sites-
Essential/dp/0596529309)) Get it immediately and do what he says. In my
experience, the differences are very material.

The one thing I would add is: wherever possible, give resources immutable URLs
(that is, when a resource changes, change its URL) and tell the browser to
cache them not for an hour but forever. This saves endless wailing and
gnashing of teeth on both sides of the browser-cache abyss (i.e. things not
being cached when you want them to and -- much worse -- things being cached
when you don't want them to). Seriously, this rule changes misery to joy.

p.s. While copying the above link I noticed that Souders published a sequel (
_Even Faster Web Sites_ ). Who here has read it? Can you report how good it
is?

~~~
dunkjmcd
Even Faster is mostly JavaScript and image optimisations. Not quite the holy
Grail of the first book but a good one to have in your collection none the
less.

