Web Site Optimization: Slow Download Times Haunt Halloween Sites

With Halloween fast approaching what better way to celebrate All Hallows Eve than a comparative review of the TOP 5 Halloween shopping sites.

Will visitors be brave enough to browse and find scary supplies easily, or run screaming from these home pages? To find out, we compared five top Halloween sites to see how fast and accessible they are for people with short attention
spans and disabilities. The results may surprise you.

For the full Halloween Web Site Optimization comparison, see
http://www.optimizationweek.com/reviews/halloween/

If you're searching for that sexy Halloween costume to wow your friends, pull up a crypt, we'll leave the fright on for you. All of the sites tested were above our size and downtime guidelines and all failed our accessibility tests.

Halloween Shopping Site Speed

To see how well the top Halloween sites complied with the speed guidelines published in my book Speed Up Your Site (http://www.speedupyoursite.com) we analyzed FantasyCostumes.com, FrightCatalog.com, FrightShop.com, GhoulSkool.com, and TheHalloweenGroup.com for download speed. The home pages were analyzed using our free Web Page Analyzer tool plus an additional tool to detect dynamic content. The results

For the full Halloween Web Site Optimization comparison, see
http://www.optimizationweek.com/reviews/halloween/

About Web Site Optimization

Don't Make Me Wait! The popular book titled "Speed Up Your Site – Web Site Optimization" by Andy King, and the companion web site are about designing "speedy" web sites with techniques that…

* Cut file size and download times in half
* Speed up site load time to satisfy customers
* Engage users with fast response times and flow stimulus
* Increase usability, boost profits, and slash bandwidth costs
* Improve search engine rankings and web page conversions

Andy King is also the founder of WebReference.com and JavaScript.com, both award-winning developer sites from internet.com. Created in 1995 and subsequently acquired by Mecklermedia (now Jupitermedia) in 1997, WebReference has grown into one of the most popular developer sites on the Internet. While he was Managing Editor of WebReference.com and JavaScript.com, Andy became the "Usability Czar" at internet.com, where he optimized the speed and usability of their sites. In addition to his consulting work, he continues to
write the monthly Bandwidth Report and the “Speed Tweak of the Week” for www.WebSiteOptimization.com.

Contact Matt Hockin at 503.246.1375 for an interview with the author or a review copy of Speed Up Your Site - Web Site Optimization http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com matt(at)interactivemarketinginc.com