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Sink the Splash Page - Web Page Analyzer Update - Web Developer Extension for Firefox

Optimization Week Issue #40, November 9, 2004

This week we delve into the world of splash pages to see what all the fuss is about. Splash pages slow down your site, reduce credibility and search engine rankings, and increase bailout rates. In fact, some webmasters have reported up to 71% bailout rates on splash pages. We offer some hard evidence, and some tips for better splash pages where they are warranted.

In other news we've updated our Web Page Analyzer to fix some bugs, and are working on a more memory-efficient version to handle the increased load we've experienced lately. In related news the Analyzer is now part of the Web Developer Extension for Firefox and Mozilla. Mozilla.org experienced heavy traffic from people downloading the new Firefox 1.0 browser, released earlier today. Chris Pederick, the author of the Extension, said this about how it came about:

"I wanted to try out writing some extensions for Firefox and I decided to write the Web Developer bar after the author of the PNH Toolbar decided not to continue it.

As for adding your tool I think originally I saw it mentioned on webreference.com or something similar and thought it would be incredibly useful to add in."

Sink the Splash Page: Skip intro splash pages degrade performance, increase bailout rates, and decrease your search engine rankings. Most importantly splash screens reduce web credibility with up to 71% traffic loss.
Web Page Analyzer 0.934: We've updated the analyzer to fix some bugs, including more accurate object size calcuations and security fixes. Due to increased usage, you may have noticed some slowdowns lately with the site. We've pinpointed the problem and are working on a more memory-efficient version.
Web Developer Extension Features the Web Page Analyzer: Chris Pederick's Firefox and Mozilla extension includes our Web Page Analyzer among its many features. The toolbar is designed for developers who want to peer behind the screens to analyze their CSS, HTML, cookies, headers, and entire web pages.