Sort the frontpage out - over 600 network requests !

[Carlson-online]

Been wondering for a while why this site is so slow compared to others, then i happened to visit it with network inspector open.

This is madness - over 600 http requests to load the front page, and 20MB payload?!

Now I understand that ads are needed for revenue, but stuff like this makes me want to turn the ad-blocker back on for this site.

 

[Weaselboy]

Ping @arn @WildCowboy

 

[arn]

We actually do try to optimize the site for page load speed and generally the ad-requests shouldn't slow down the initial load of the page.

Those resources tend to load after. We don't have full control of that payload, since it's outsourced to an ad network. While looking at the network load on our site, I didn't see it quite as large as you saw, but it is similar to other sites like ours from what I can tell.

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of levers to pull to tweak that. I know this isn't the best answer, but we do offer a paid tier which removes all displays ads on the site and also allows you to filter the front page content to some degree.

arn