Website Optimization - Evolution of the Web from 2000 to 2007

Website Optimization, LLC (WSO), a leading website optimization provider is announcing that the Web has changed dramatically over the past seven years. During that time the Web has moved from a static one-way medium toward a dynamic platform for interactive services such as photo and video sharing portals. In a comparative survey of data traces served over the Web from 2000 and 2007, University of Twente researchers found that the nature of web sites has changed (Sadre and Haverkort, 2008).

Where in 2000 nearly all traffic volume was caused by traditional HTML formats of images and HTML, in 2007 nearly all the traffic volume was made up of videos and binary software updates and downloads. Due in this shift toward larger videos clips and binary downloads the mean response size has increased from 12,294 to 68,275 bytes, a factor of 5.5 times larger (see Figure 1). The caching efficiency of the Web has decreased while dynamic responses have increased from 21.2% to 37.1%. These changes show how the Web has shifted from static information to dynamic rich media. ( See figure 1 http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/evolution-web/ )

Mean Web Object Size Quintuples Since 2000

Table 1 shows how response size statistics have changed between the 2000 and 2007 traces. The mean response size grew 455% from 12,294 bytes to 68,275.2 bytes, or some 5.5 times larger. The median response size grew from 2,410 bytes to 2,780 bytes. Both traces show a heavy-tailed distribution, with the 2007 even more heavily tailed. This effect can be seen in the order of magnitude increase in the Squared Coefficient of Variation of the response size distribution (SCV) from 320.9 to 3,425, as well as an increase in the largest documents observed. The largest document observed in a 2004 trace had a size of 193 Mbytes, whereas the largest file in the 2007 trace had a size of around 2 Gbytes showing that the 2007 trace was even more heavy tailed with a much larger distribution of larger objects. ( See table 1 http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/evolution-web/ )

For the full "Evolution of the Web" study including data on Popular Object Type Evolution, Traffic Volume and Size, Average Page Size and Number of Requests, Caching and Dynamic Pages visit: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/evolution-web/

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