Even Faster Web Sites

best practices for faster pages

Steve Souders
souders@google.com
http://stevesouders.com/
Disclaimer: This content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer.
The Importance of Frontend
Performance
9% 91%

17% 83%

iGoogle, primed cache

iGoogle, empty cache

 Time Spent on the Frontend
Empty Cache Primed Cache
www.aol.com 97% 97%
www.ebay.com 95% 81%
www.facebook.com 95% 81%
www.google.com/search 47% 0%
search.live.com/results 67% 0%
www.msn.com 98% 94%
www.myspace.com 98% 98%
en.wikipedia.org/wiki 94% 91%
www.yahoo.com 97% 96%
www.youtube.com 98% 97%
The Performance Golden Rule

80-90% of the end-user response time is

spent on the frontend. Start there.
greater potential for improvement
simpler
proven to work
 14 Rules
1. Make fewer HTTP requests
2. Use a CDN
3. Add an Expires header
4. Gzip components
5. Put stylesheets at the top
6. Put scripts at the bottom
7. Avoid CSS expressions
8. Make JS and CSS external
9. Reduce DNS lookups
10. Minify JS
11. Avoid redirects
12. Remove duplicate scripts
13. Configure ETags
14. Make AJAX cacheable
 YSlow

High Performance Web Sites

http://conferences.oreilly.com/velocity/ 20% discount: vel08st
 Even Faster Web Sites

1. Split the initial payload

2. Load scripts without blocking
3. Don't scatter scripts
4. Split dominant content domains
5. Make static content cookie-free
6. Reduce cookie weight
7. Minify CSS
8. Optimize images
9. Use iframes sparingly
10.To www or not to www
Why focus on JavaScript?

Yahoo!
Wikipedia
eBay
AOL
MySpace
YouTube
Facebook
 Scripts Block
<script src="A.js"> blocks parallel
downloads and rendering

http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10008

What's "Cuzillion"?
 Cuzillion
'cuz there are a zillion pages to check

a tool for quickly constructing web pages to

see how components interact
Open Source
http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/
Split the Initial Payload: Facebook

43 external scripts, 550K uncompressed

9% of functionality is used before onload
 Unexecuted Payload
functions not used
before onload
www.aol.com 70%
www.ebay.com 56%
www.facebook.com 91%
www.google.com/search 55%
search.live.com/results 76%
www.msn.com 69%
www.myspace.com 82%
en.wikipedia.org/wiki 68%
www.yahoo.com 87%
www.youtube.com 82% 73.6% avg
 Split the initial payload

split your JavaScript between what's

needed to render the page and
everything else
load "everything else" after the page is
rendered
separate manually (Firebug); tools needed
to automate this (Doloto from Microsoft)
load scripts without blocking – how?
MSN.com: Parallel Scripts

MSN
Scripts and other resources downloaded
in parallel! How?
var
p=g.getElementsByTagName("HEAD")[0];
var c=g.createElement("script");
c.type="text/javascript";
c.onreadystatechange=n;
c.onerror=c.onload=k;
c.src=e;
p.appendChild(c)
 Advanced Script Loading

XHR Eval
XHR Injection
Script in Iframe
Script DOM Element
Script Defer
document.write Script Tag
 XHR Eval
var xhrObj = getXHRObject();
xhrObj.onreadystatechange =
function() {
if ( xhrObj.readyState != 4 ) return;
eval(xhrObj.responseText);
};
xhrObj.open('GET', 'A.js', true);
xhrObj.send('');

script must have same domain as main page

must refactor script
http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10009
 XHR Injection
var xhrObj = getXHRObject();
xhrObj.onreadystatechange =
function() {
if ( xhrObj.readyState != 4 ) return;
var se=document.createElement('script');
document.getElementsByTagName('head')
[0].appendChild(se);
se.text = xhrObj.responseText;
};
xhrObj.open('GET', 'A.js', true);
xhrObj.send('');

script must have same domain as main page

http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10015
 Script in Iframe
<iframe src='A.html' width=0 height=0
frameborder=0 id=frame1></iframe>

iframe must have same domain as main page

must refactor script:
// access iframe from main page
window.frames[0].createNewDiv();

// access main page from iframe

parent.document.createElement('div');

http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10012
 Script DOM Element
var se = document.createElement('script');
se.src = 'http://anydomain.com/A.js';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')
[0].appendChild(se);

script and main page domains can differ

no need to refactor JavaScript

http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10010
 Script Defer
<script defer src='A.js'></script>

only supported in IE
script and main page domains can differ
no need to refactor JavaScript

http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10013
 document.write Script Tag
document.write("<scri" +
"ipt type='text/javascript' src='A.js'>" +
"</scri" + "ipt>");

parallelization only works in IE

parallel downloads for scripts, nothing else
all document.writes must be in same
script block

http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10014
Browser Busy Indicators
 Browser Busy Indicators

good to show busy indicators when the user needs feedback

bad when downloading in the background
 

Ensure/Avoid Ordered Execution

Ensure scripts execute in order:

necessary when scripts have dependencies
IE: http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10017
FF: http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10018

Avoid scripts executing in order:

faster – first script back is executed immediately
http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10019
 Summary of Traits

*
Only other document.write scripts are downloaded in parallel (in the same script block).
and the winner is...
 Load Scripts without Blocking

don't let scripts block other downloads

you can still control execution order, busy
indicators, and onload event

What about inline scripts?

 Inline Scripts Block Rendering

long executing inline scripts block

rendering of the entire page
http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10020

workarounds:
initiate execution with setTimeout
move JavaScript to external script with
advanced downloading techniques
Inline Scripts after Stylesheets
Block Downloading
Firefox blocks parallel downloads when
downloading stylesheets
IE doesn't...
...unless the stylesheet is followed by an
inline script
http://stevesouders.com/cuzillion/?ex=10021

best to move inline scripts above

stylesheets or below other resources
Examples of Scattered Scripts

MSN
Wikipedia
eBay
MySpace
 Don't Scatter Scripts

remember inline scripts carry a cost

avoid long-executing inline scripts
don't put inline scripts between stylesheets
and other resources
 Takeaways

focus on the frontend

run YSlow: http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow
Velocity: register before May 5
this year's focus: JavaScript
Split the Initial Payload
Load Scripts without Blocking
Don't Scatter Scripts
speed matters
you CAN make your site even faster!
 Steve Souders
souders@google.com
http://stevesouders.com/