Internet Performance
Introduction
This report describes an analysis of the performance of two hundred Internet sites over a one month period between September-October 1999. The sites examined range from major Internet destination sites to government agencies, from consulting companies to educational institutions. Current daily and weekly measurements are available at http://www.e-insights.com .
Summary Results
The figures below show site performance by industry category and by server software, organized into Speed/Reliability comparisons and Quality/Complexity comparisons. Speed is based on average download time, reliability is based on the percent site availability, quality is based on the percent of pages which specify resources which cannot be retrieved, and complexity on the average number of URLs specified in a page
Figure 1: Speed/Reliability comparisons.
Industry Category Key –
|
COMP/Computer |
CONSUL/Consulting |
|
EDU/Educational Institutions |
FIN/Financial |
|
GOV/Government |
INET/Internet |
|
INFO/Information |
ISP/Internet Service Provider |
|
MANUF/Manufacturing |
NAE/News & Entertainment |
|
PUB/Publishing |
RET/Retail |
|
TELCO/Telecommunications |
TRA/Transport |
While higher Quality and Reliability are always better, there is a tradeoff between complexity and download time. More complex pages allow for a richer end user experience, but also in general are larger and take longer to download.
Figure 2: Complexity/Quality comparisons.
In examining Figures 1&2, the best performing sites can be grouped into sites which were simple and fast (e.g. INET & INFO) or complex and slow (TELCO & MANUF). Also noteworthy is the PUB sector which scored very well in Complexity/Quality, but fell down badly in both Speed and Availability, and the GOV sector which had the opposite problem – fast reliable, but simple and error prone.
The remainder of the report presents detailed qualitative and quantitative performance of the sites during the course of the observation period. Topics investigated include server software used, site availability, speed, error rates, page size & complexity, and the usage of Frames, Scripts, Applets and Cookies .
All reasonable care was exercised during the collection and analysis of the data presented in this report. However, in no event shall E-Insights, LLC be liable in any way for any inaccuracies this report may contain.
Table of Contents
|
Page |
|
|
Measurement Process |
4 |
|
Site Operating Software |
5 |
|
Availability |
5 |
|
Download Time |
7 |
|
Page Complexity |
10 |
|
Page Quality |
13 |
|
Usage of Frames, Scripts and Applets |
15 |
|
Cookie Usage |
16 |
|
Figure 1: Speed/Reliability comparisons. |
1 |
|
Figure 2: Complexity/Quality comparisons. |
2 |
|
Figure 3: Server Software in use across categories. |
3 |
|
Figure 4: Site Availability by category and Server Software. |
6 |
|
Figure 5: Download time distribution. |
7 |
|
Figure 6: Per Category and Server Software average download times. |
7 |
|
Figure 7: Cumulative download time distributions, GOV vs. COMP. |
8 |
|
Figure 8: Page download time distribution by Server Software. |
9 |
|
Figure 9: Throughput distribution by Server Software. |
9 |
|
Figure 10: Average Throughput by category and Server Software. |
10 |
|
Figure 11: Page size distribution by Server Software. |
11 |
|
Figure 12: Average Page Size by category and Server Software. |
11 |
|
Figure 13: Page complexity distribution by Server Software. |
12 |
|
Figure 14: Average Page complexity distribution by Server Software. |
13 |
|
Figure 15: Average page quality by category and Server Software. |
14 |
|
Figure 16: URL error rate. |
14 |
|
Figure 17: Frames usage by Category and Server Software. |
15 |
|
Figure 18: Script usage by Category and Server Software. |
15 |
|
Figure 19: Applet usage by Category and Server Software. |
16 |
|
Figure 20: Cookie set by site. |
17 |
|
Figure 21: Cookies set by controlling domain. |
18 |
|
Figure 22: Cumulative cookie expiration dates. |
18 |
|
Table 1: Category definitions. |
4 |
|
Table 2: Coverage of advertising and tracking services. |
19 |
|
Table 3: Complete list of Server Software packages encountered. |
21 |
E-insights, LLC.