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Load Time

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:15 am
by fscottdahlgren
So please bear with me, I'm sure this has been answered once or twice, but I cannot find it.

I wrote a webpage that never left the directory. The site loaded a directory object at the bottom, an ads object to the right, and a content object in the middle. When the user initially requested my page, some small scripts found their IP address, the referal page, page request, time, etc. and databased this data. I designed the site using lynx and Mozilla, and it worked perfectly in both. Everything worked perfectly, fast load time, a static browser size, very nice.

Unless you used a browser that did not recognize objects or you used tabbed browsing. Then, site navigation became difficult. When browsers didn't recognize the object/target tag, then the browser opened the links in a new window (lynx had no problem with this, but I believe it was IE and maybe Netscape that couldn't figure out what to do). Users complained that opening the content into a new page removed the link directory (also the ads, which raised no complaints). I didn't design the site with this type of navigation in mind; however, I feel like an jerk telling people how to navigate my site or which browser to use. I really appreciate user feedback, so this was not an option. I simply said I would fix it.

To fix this, I created a new index page, and used some scripts to accomplish the feeling of objects by creating tables of uniform column width throughout the site. The new problem is load time. The scripts that were originally run only once are now run everytime the user requests a new page. This means that my AdWords are refreshed on every page load, an IP lookup, etc.. Also, the size of the content is no longer static, but is now dependent on the length of the text and images. This is but an aesthetic issue, and users may or may not dislike this as much as me. However, I know the load time must be irritating.

Is there anyway to simply pass the users information along and tell AdWords not to refresh? Or maybe I could assign each client a unique customer number, and this number is passed along? But there is also the issue of a customer arriving at a page other than the index (this was never an issue with the old page design). I cannot think of a way to solve ALL these problems.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues? How did you solve them? I think if no one can come up with a better idea I will simply remove AdWords, but this is a last resort for me.

Thanks in advance.
Scott

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:07 pm
by Begby
Is this PHP? Do you have any links or anything to your site?

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:01 pm
by fscottdahlgren
I have shtml, php, and AdWords java script (I believe, didn't write it). Each works fine alone, but together they are slow. I removed AdWords, and everything works fine, except there are no adWords. I can't see how this makes sense, but oh well.

http://www.atlantaaquascapes.com/db.php

Code: Select all

<?
$remoteIP = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
if (strstr($remoteIP, ', ')) {
   $ips = explode(', ', $remoteIP);
   $remoteIP = $ips[0];
};
$referedby=$_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"];
$requested=$_ENV["REQUEST_URI"];
$browser= $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
$time=time();
mysql_connect($hostname,$username, $password);
mysql_select_db($dbname);
mysql_query("INSERT INTO visitors (IP, time, DateTime, browser, referedby, requested) VALUES('$remoteIP', '$time',FROM_UNIXTIME($time+7200),'$browser','$referedby','$requested')");
?>
adWords: http://www.atlantaaquasccapes.com/ads.shtml or http://www.atlantaaquascapes.com/adsLong.shtml
shtml: http://www.atlantaaquascapes.com

Thanks Again!

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:05 pm
by feyd
AdWords will be dependent on the user's machine and connection, not your server more often than not.

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:10 pm
by fscottdahlgren
Thanks. This is something I had not considered.