Why does this site load so fast?

[edzt]

What makes this site (UKGSER.com) load and work at a decent speed?
Is it size of the servers, limited number of users, software etc

I've often wondered why some sites on the web are so much better than others

 

[JayC]

I don't think it's a specific thing with this site. There are times when it is so slow you can lose the will to live!
I feel it is more to do with connectivity, modems, routers, signal area , traffic etc.
In saying that there are many websites that are simply overloaded with gifs and alsorts of other unnecessary junk that severely hamper load up time. I don't have the patience for such sites and simply close the tab.

When my connectivity is good I find many sites load quickly but occasionally the connection gets interrupted and I can't complete the

 

[Paul G (BHT)]

What makes this site (UKGSER.com) load and work at a decent speed?
Is it size of the servers, limited number of users, software etc

I've often wondered why some sites on the web are so much better than others

In a word...... Money.

The old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ certainly applies here. UKGSer resides on its own high spec dedicated server. It’s not cheap, but as you say it is certainly quick.

Many sites out on the net reside on servers that host 100’s even 1,000’s of other sites, this obviously has a detrimental effect on their performance.

 

[Blue Sweeper]

In a word...... Money.

The old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ certainly applies here. UKGSer resides on its own high spec dedicated server. It’s not cheap, but as you say it is certainly quick.

Many sites out on the net reside on servers that host 100’s even 1,000’s of other sites, this obviously has a detrimental effect on their performance.

It would be interesting to see a photo of it, if that's possible. I'd guess that's not, as the host site is probably hundreds/thousands of miles away from you Paul. But in any case, it's probably just a blade server in a rack somewhere, what are the specs?

 

[Paul G (BHT)]

Not a blade Roy, but a 1U rackable system, it may be small but it packs a mighty punch

Dual quad core Intel Xeon CPU 3.20GHz processors and 8GB RAM, bandwidth transfer about 300GB per month

 

[Blackal]

Not a blade Roy, but a 1U rackable system, it may be small but it packs a mighty punch

Dual quad core Intel Xeon CPU 3.20GHz processors and 8GB RAM, bandwidth transfer about 300GB per month

R-1s were always faster than Blades anyway

Al

 

[edzt]

In a word...... Money.

The old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ certainly applies here. UKGSer resides on its own high spec dedicated server. It’s not cheap, but as you say it is certainly quick.

Many sites out on the net reside on servers that host 100’s even 1,000’s of other sites, this obviously has a detrimental effect on their performance.

Glad to see our subscription is being well spent

 

[Nutty]

Glad to see our subscription is being well spent

Quite refreshing

 

[Blue Sweeper]

Not a blade Roy, but a 1U rackable system, it may be small but it packs a mighty punch

Dual quad core Intel Xeon CPU 3.20GHz processors and 8GB RAM, bandwidth transfer about 300GB per month

Nice.

There's one on eBay for just under £200

 

[Paul G (BHT)]

Nice.

There's one on eBay for just under £200

I bet it doesn't come with 24/7/365 monitoring and support, mirrored daily backups + 1TB of data transfer per month included in the price?

 

[Fanum]

Apart from BHT's extravagant hardware setup, the other reason this place will load so fast is because you use it a lot ....as you use a site, the content like the pics and stuff get cached, so they effectively load from your own PC cache and you're only waiting for 'new' content to download from the server.

Go to a new site or one which has lots of regularly changing adverts or banners, and it will slow things down immensely as you have to wait for it all

 

[duckspeed]

Nice.


There's one on eBay for just under £200

You have to go and spoil it don't you ? I was just sitting there feeling all smug and warm, and you come along with your " Could have got it on Ebay for less"

 

[Blue Sweeper]

You have to go and spoil it don't you ? I was just sitting there feeling all smug and warm, and you come along with your " Could have got it on Ebay for less"

It was a "tongue-in-cheek" comment.

Just like the GS "spare parts" on eBay that you can buy from Latvia!

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

Despite the subs reminder stating they need the money for the yacht and helicopter they do actually spend at least some of the money on the service ;-) With most slow sites it isn't usually down to the web server but either the host has crap bandwidth or more usually because their database servers are either crap or overloaded. Some hosts actually publish the servers they use but I have no idea why because usually they are old and under spec.
As for caching, that's not the case with an active site like ukgser. The content is never static and its served through a search every click. Some parts like the banners are static and can be cached but the rest is constantly changing. A static site like a lot of personal sites on the other hand can be cached and will work quicker after you have used it. This assumes you don't clear your internet history all the time.

 

[csd4t]

That server is a credit to you

 

[ianf]

Well, although it's cached, a simple reload of this thread generates a ton of requests to see if any of the elements are modified since they were last stored.
The 304 status is 'not modified' so the amount of data needed goes down, but it still makes about a hundred requests for each page, and it does perform well...