How many Kb?

[nickmcgraw]

Kind of an odd question, but how big (in terms of kilobytes) should an average index page be?

Mine will have work on it, to display a portfolio. Right now, mine sits at 8kb, and there's quite a bit built into it. I'm thinking this will load very quickly when you view it in a browser window.

Just wondering, if I want my page to load relatively quickly, what size should I keep it at? Less than 20kb? 15kb?

 

[conor]

I think bigger factors in speed would be images on the page and loading css/javascript. In terms of the actually size of the file i don't think it would make a noticable difference to the overall page load speed unless the file was massive.

The key thing is that every file that is loaded ( image,css, javascript ) creates a different request to fetch the information. The biggest factor in the speed is often the amount of requests rather than the size of the requested file. ie, if you keep the amount of requests low your website should be fast. Fetch information in bulk.

 

[nickmcgraw]

Ahh, that makes a lot of sense. On that note, I have jquery elements and tons of CSS for fancybox, which I think will make the biggest difference.

Thanks for the pro tip!

 

[Edge]

You should be able to aggregate your CSS and JS down to two requests.
Who's the target market anyway? Businesses with good connections and decent machines?
Public sector using .. anyone's guess..
Joe public..
I'd be inclined to build the home page around target market requirements and then streamline it afterwards rather than starting off thinking it has to be so many K.

 

[webdevcloud]

With css files, images, text everything try to keep it under 300 KB. But depends on your audience. These days it does not matter much unless you go close to 1MB.