The average New Zealand homepage may be smaller than global sites, but there are still some shockers out there that will cause users issues on download.
That appears to be the finding of a survey by ProjectX Blog, which has surveyed the top 75 homepages in New Zealand and named the best and worst in terms of download speed.
The New Zealand Homepage Hall of Shame includes, in order from the worst offender, TV3, Kiwiblog, Seek and Stuff among other Kiwi internet stars. The survey was conducted by Silicon Wellie company ProjectX using the YSlow tool over the top 75 New Zealand websites from Rankr. The survey shows the average homepage was 304.9kb compared to a global average of 312kb, but two websites (vouchermate.co.nz and skycitycinemas.co.nz) weighed in at over 1,000kb. For the record, Project X's homepage weighs in at around twice the average at 640kb, which would put it in sixth place on its 10 largest homepages list. However, it does appear to get a very good YSlow rating. Computerworld weighs in at 322kb, but receives a lower rating. Advertising and Javascript were not being compressed and some sites had dozens of Javascript and CSS files, Project X blog finds. "A number of web companies and web developers should be holding their heads in shame - the results are not flattering. We need to better building smart - download friendly webpages not slow loading monsters ! You can either fix it yourself or get some experts!" the researcher screams. The best homepages in terms of download were: zoomin.co.nz, nz.yahoo.com, fishpond.co.nz, smaps.co.nz, oldfriends.co.nz, nzdating.co.nz and trademe.co.nz.