Talk:Web performance optimization/Draft

Steve Souders first introduced the idea of improving the performance of websites for the user-experience in 2004{{cite web|last=Souders|first=Steve|title=Web Performance Optimization|url=http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/05/07/wpo-web-performance-optimization/|accessdate=1 December 2012}}. At that time Souders made several predictions regarding the impact that WPO as an "emerging industry" would bring to the web, such as websites being fast by default, consolidation, web standards for performance, environmental impacts of optimization, and speed as a differentiator.{{cite web|last=Souders|first=Steve|title=Web Performance Optimization|url=http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/05/07/wpo-web-performance-optimization/|accessdate=1 December 2012}}

At its inception, WPO was focused mainly on optimizing website code and pushing hardware limitations. According to Patrick Killelea’s book Web Performance Tuning, some of the techniques proposed were to use simple servlets or CGI, increase server memory, and look for packet loss and retransmission. {{cite book|last=Killelea|first=Patrick|title=Web Performance Tuning|year=2002|publisher=O'Reilly Media|location=Sebastopol|isbn=059600172X|pages=480|url=http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/06/27/web_tuning.html}} Although these principles now comprise much the optimized foundation of our internet applications, one could argue that the focus was not so much on how to improve the front-end experience but on how to transfer the data from the server to the user.

One major point that Souders made is that at least 80% of the time that it takes to download/view a website is controlled by the front-end structure. Web developers are strictly responsible for that 80% lag, and can decrease it by learning more about how the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) works.{{cite book|last=Souders|first=Steve|title=High Performance Websites|year=2007|publisher=O'Reilly Media|location=Farnham|isbn=0596529309|pages=170|url=http://stevesouders.com/hpws/}}

There are a number of guidelines that web developers can adhere to in order to optimize web performance. Below is a short list of individuals and/or prominent companies that offer WPO guidelines:

• Steve Souders, who is considered by many to be the pioneer of the field{{cite web|title=Steve Souders Bio|url=http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2951|accessdate=3 December 2012}}, mentions 28 steps for optimizing web performance, from greatest gains to smallest, in his two books on the subject, entitled High Performance Websites and Even Faster Websites. He has also created a plugin ([http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/ YSlow]) and heads the initiative for Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
• Yahoo! has a list of 35 best practices divided into 7 categories{{cite web|title=Yahoo! WPO Tips|url=http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html|accessdate=3 December 2012}}.
• In 2009 Google launched a developers initiative to provide web developers with tools and best practices for making the web faster{{cite web|title=Google PageSpeed Ingishts Announcement|url=http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-page-speed.html|accessdate=4 December 2012}}. There is a section solely devoted to [https://developers.google.com/speed/articles/ articles about WPO]. Google additionally offers a [https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/service service] that will do the optimizing automagically.

Regardless of the approach or set of tools, optimization gains are always made on one of three levels: High, Medium, or Low. These levels correspond to the amount of time it takes to leverage these changes, the highest of which should take the least amount of time and therefore yield the most in optimization gains. These steps can enhance the user experience, and make Web apps better{{cite web|title=Best practices for building faster Web apps with HTML5|url=http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/tutorials/speed_best_practices}}.

• WPO is an organic way to increase visit retention and loyalty{{cite web|title=Google Adds Site Speed To Search Ranking|url=http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/04/09/google-adds-site-speed-to-search-ranking/|accessdate=4 December 2012}}{{cite web|last=Sharon|first=Bell|title=WPO {{!}} Preparing for Cyber Monday Traffic|url=http://www.cdnetworks.com/blog/cyber-monday-web-performance-optimization/|work=CDNetworks|accessdate=4 December 2012}}.

• "Fast sites increase user satisfaction and improve the overall quality of the web (especially for those users with slow Internet connections), and... as webmasters improve their sites, the overall speed of the web will improve"{{cite web|title=Webmaster Guidelines|url=http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769|accessdate=2 December 2012}}.

• Less data traveling across the web{{cite web|last=Bellonch|first=Albert|title=Web performance optimization for everyone|url=http://www.slideshare.net/itnig/web-performance-optimization-for-everyone|accessdate=4 December 2012}}.

• Better for mobile devices{{cite web|last=Souders|first=Steve|title=Web First for Mobile|url=http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2012/05/16/web-first-for-mobile/|accessdate=4 December 2012}}.

• WPO creates a more efficient web - lowering costs, power consumption, resources used, and helps decrease the environmental impact of the web{{cite web|last=Souders|first=Steve|title=Web Performance Optimization|url=http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/05/07/wpo-web-performance-optimization/|accessdate=1 December 2012}}.

• HTML5BoilerPlate.com (https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/v4.0.1/doc/htaccess.md)

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