Not going to lie... I like this forum but man it is slowwwwwwwwww....

[Red_on_the_head]

Does anyone know what's up?

I have a fairly fast computer and internet connection.  This is the slowest site I've ever been on for a forum.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has the same problems?!

Thanks,

Red

[turtleback]

I think it is the heavy load of ads.  As I watch I see a lot of ads loading.  Which I can understand since this is a big site and the people who run it deserve to make money off of it as they are  providing a good service.

But personally I would love the option to pay about $25 and get an ad-free faster version.

[MiniBlueDragon]

I use Firefox with AdBlock Plus addon and the forum's sweet. No slowdown at all here.

[Double Bogey]

Like BlueDragon... I use Ad Block Plus.  It makes the site much zippier.  FWIW I use Google chrome as a browser

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Red_on_the_head

Does anyone know what's up?

I have a fairly fast computer and internet connection.  This is the slowest site I've ever been on for a forum.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has the same problems?!

I won't lie - part of it is the ads. Another part of it is the stuff on the sidebar, like the reviews and things which show up. Very heavy JavaScripts, etc.

The team behind the software (Huddler) that runs this forum is constantly making improvements to both the functionality and the speed. Speed has been a bigger issue of discussion amongst owners of other Huddler-powered sites. We hope for noticeable gains to be made in this regard soon.

Originally Posted by turtleback

But personally I would love the option to pay about $25 and get an ad-free faster version.

Coming soon. Not for as little as $25, but coming soon, along with some other perks.

To both of you (and anyone else), I appreciate the comments. I've kind of "gotten used" to the speed, but it's still important to know how it feels to others. The site's still about 3x slower than I think it could or should be, and I'm going to keep after this with Huddler, as I think it's far and away more important than any other "new" features.

[turtleback]

Depending on the perks it could be well worth it.  This has become my go to site for golf discussions.

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

I use Firefox with AdBlock Plus addon and the forum's sweet. No slowdown at all here.

Thanks for the tip.  I just added AdBlock Plus and it fixed the speed issue.

[Zeph]

You get used to it on this forum, but when frequenting other forums as well, you notice the difference. I'll be here regardless of speed, but on internet, faster is always better.

AdBlock doesn't help much since it's how they pay for this site and can run it. If the ads are causing speed issues, it should definitely be improved.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Zeph

You get used to it on this forum, but when frequenting other forums as well, you notice the difference. I'll be here regardless of speed, but on internet, faster is always better.

AdBlock doesn't help much since it's how they pay for this site and can run it. If the ads are causing speed issues, it should definitely be improved.

Thanks Zeph.

It's not really cool to run AdBlock. This site costs money to host and more than that, a lot of time and effort. It's free for you to use - just consider the results of turning off ads on our side of things. Or, at the very least, sign up for our Supporter program (I think that's what it's called), which should launch this week. $39/year with some perks to start and more to be added.

That said, I'm not too bothered by it, but $39 over a year in lost ad impressions adds up when you get 100 users doing it, or 200... or 1000 users not seeing even $9 in ads annually.

---

Now, to switch gears totally to a testing perspective, could one of you show me a video with a cleared cache that shows:

a) slow loading of the site with ads enabled

b) fast loading of the site with ads disabled

Do the video with a clear cache in both instances, please. I'd be really interested to see that video. Cuz, just being honest, every page on the site loads in about 2-3 seconds for me... so I have a hard time truly understanding how slow the site feels for everyone.

[Double Bogey]

Erik-

I am one of the ones which uses ad blocker, I did not mean any disrespect but the OP wanted a way to make it snappier.  This helped for me.  I am a member of quite a few sites and the ones that I frequent, I have no issue paying a site fee (if they have one).  Especially if it gets all the ads off the main forum pages.  I think most of us here are here because we like the site, reviews and forums.  Please keep up the good work, and keep us posted on the supporter program.

[Zeph]

For me it usually loads between 3 and 6 seconds, depending on the amount of text and pictures on the page. Most the the time is spent sending the request and recieving data. The page loads a bit faster with the ads blocked, but with the request time it's hard to record something. There might be some program that can record this stuff automatically when loading a page.

[MiniBlueDragon]

@Erik: The vast majority of ads I used to see before installing ABP were US-centric, of no interest to me or otherwise irrelevant so I made the decision to block them rather than have my browsing experience slowed down. As I have never click through an ad and never plan to do so you've not lost any money whether I run a blocker or not.

Having said that however, I'm perfectly happy to pay for anything I think is worth paying for, whether it's a Spotify premium subscription for my music, a monthly game fee, a magazine subscription or a forum I frequent and like such as TheSandTrap.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Double Bogey

I am one of the ones which uses ad blocker, I did not mean any disrespect but the OP wanted a way to make it snappier.  This helped for me.  I am a member of quite a few sites and the ones that I frequent, I have no issue paying a site fee (if they have one).  Especially if it gets all the ads off the main forum pages.  I think most of us here are here because we like the site, reviews and forums.  Please keep up the good work, and keep us posted on the supporter program.

Can you help me to quantify this? The load times with and without ads? I'm curious. I totally get that you guys would probably leave ads on to "support the site" but you're turning them off for performance reasons. If I have some evidence that the ads alone are negatively increasing performance so drastically, then that strengthens my case that the ad serving platform is slow and could be looked at and improved.

I'm glad I can count on your support. Believe me, we hope that "no ads" is just one of the many reasons why $39 is an easy decision and well worth it to you guys. And we also hope to make ads load quickly if you choose not to pay the $39.

Originally Posted by Zeph

For me it usually loads between 3 and 6 seconds, depending on the amount of text and pictures on the page. Most the the time is spent sending the request and recieving data. The page loads a bit faster with the ads blocked, but with the request time it's hard to record something. There might be some program that can record this stuff automatically when loading a page.

Huddler has told us that most of the time is spent on the client side, but I don't feel that's the whole story. Other complex sites render more quickly than ours, particularly after they're cached. CNN.com for example just loaded the home page more slowly than normal, but subsequent pages load very, very quickly.

Basically, when you click a link a request is sent, then there's a delay, then content is sent back, then content is assembled. Huddler tells me the significant delay is in the third step, the assembly step, but I don't know if I buy it entirely.

Again, the more data y'all can give me, the better and stronger my case. Are requests really slow? Perhaps the server has a really slow response time AND a slow assembly time, but the middle step of actual content delivery is really fast. I don't know.

What do you guys get when you do this:

 ping -c 10 -i 20 -s 560 thesandtrap.com

I get (200 seconds later of course):

 --- thesandtrap.com ping statistics ---

10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 54.574/59.134/71.120/5.757 ms

But there's more to response time ping rates, of course.

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

As I have never click through an ad and never plan to do so you've not lost any money whether I run a blocker or not.

Impressions pay, too. It's not just click-throughs. CTs pay more (and remember we're just talking about a few cents, typically, per CT) but impressions will pay as well - even if it's 1/100th of a cent per impression, those add up. Maybe not to $39, but they add up.

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

Having said that however, I'm perfectly happy to pay for anything I think is worth paying for, whether it's a Spotify premium subscription for my music, a monthly game fee, a magazine subscription or a forum I frequent and like such as TheSandTrap.

Great. Later this week you'll have that chance. Thanks.

P.S. Again, this is more about performance for me than ads. I want a snappy, fast site regardless of whether the user has ad block software, paid to become an ad-free user via the Supporter program, or is viewing the site with ads.

[MiniBlueDragon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

Impressions pay, too. It's not just click-throughs. CTs pay more (and remember we're just talking about a few cents, typically, per CT) but impressions will pay as well - even if it's 1/100th of a cent per impression, those add up. Maybe not to $39, but they add up.

I'm not sure ABP affects page impressions to be fair. Having it switched on right now the page source contains:

Quote:

Featured Sponsors

View More Select One NailedItGolf

.....

Which as far as I can tell is a section of your banner code. That means the http request is pulling it down still (and you get a page impression) but the actual banner itself is simply not displayed.

It may just be that ABP speeds up the page rendering by removing the render for such elements?

[Kieran123]

IMO, it has little to do with connection speed. Most of us have fast internet ( I would assume )

On my work PC ( Integrated intel GMA graphics, pentium 4, 1 Gb DDR ram, 40gb IDE 5400rpm hdd ....circa 2002 ) the site runs slow, at home, on my own self built gaming PC, the site runs very quickly.

Would not be surprised if the end users out dated hardware is the cause.

BUT.....my work PC and home pc are so far apart in terms of performance, I can not say what it would be like for mid range PCs....the problem may still be occurring.

You can sort of tell if it is your pc, or your connection.....if firefox, IE etc stop responding, or the scroll bar etc are laggy, it is most likely your pc, if firefox, IE etc will open new tabs, minimize maximize while you refresh the page without lag, most likely a connection issue.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

I'm not sure ABP affects page impressions to be fair. Having it switched on right now the page source contains:

Ad impressions. Not page views. But if you're saying that it doesn't affect ad impressions too, I'm fairly certain it still affects those, but I could be wrong on that. Just because a JavaScript shows up in the source doesn't mean it's called, loaded, etc. It depends on where AB intercepts the stuff.

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

It may just be that ABP speeds up the page rendering by removing the render for such elements?

See, that's what I think is wrong. I am not sure it even requests the ads or JS to load or track the ads.

Originally Posted by Kieran123

On my work PC ( Integrated intel GMA graphics, pentium 4, 1 Gb DDR ram, 40gb IDE 5400rpm hdd ....circa 2002 ) the site runs slow, at home, on my own self built gaming PC, the site runs very quickly.

That theory has been given as well. But on your work PC, are other sites also really really slow? Because people are using the same computers and telling us that this site is slow (I believe it) and other complex sites are not.

[Kieran123]

Anything flash/java intensive it will go slow

The only other forum I frequent is www.hardwareanalysis.com which is VERY basic....but I routinely go to www.stuff.co.nz for my homeland updates, and that website is slow, again,. not in connection speed, in rendering ( ie. clunky scrolling etc ) due to my slow PC.

If people could post come PC specs, we may see a trend

[MiniBlueDragon]

Originally Posted by iacas

Ad impressions. Not page views. But if you're saying that it doesn't affect ad impressions too, I'm fairly certain it still affects those, but I could be wrong on that. Just because a JavaScript shows up in the source doesn't mean it's called, loaded, etc. It depends on where AB intercepts the stuff.

See, that's what I think is wrong. I am not sure it even requests the ads or JS to load or track the ads.

Ah right so what you mean is that you think ABP is stopping the Javascript from running at all rather than nullifying it after it's run.

Definitely possible that's happening but I'd assume adding extra code into a page before it's displayed is easier than searching for and replacing code before it's displayed. The easiest and fastest option to hide ads is definitely the latter as it can be achieved using either javascript or a simple .css tweak. If that's the case the ad impressions aren't affected by ABP which is good news for you.

When turning ABP on while the SandTrap site is in the browser window, it immediately removes the ads from the screen with no page refresh which also suggests that it's nullifying rather than replacing existing code (to restore removed code would require a full refresh, whereas just changing an on/off flag in JS doesn't)

EDIT: Just realised I sound like an ABP fanboy and like I'm arguing with you. In reality I'm (badly!) trying to put your mind at rest regarding those of us who use ABP not impacting your advertising income. heh