File size and PR
When you build your website you are not always paying attention to file size.
This is more important than you may realize at first glance. Surprisingly file size can make quite a difference to your traffic and Page Rank. What is a file? A file is quite simply a small file that contains information. They come in different sizes, which affect the loading of your site.
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Large files: these are often due to images or flash.
They will slow down the loading time of your site when they become too big. This does affect traffic and Googlebots. If your site takes more than 2 seconds to load you will lose your visitors. Surfers do not have time to wait for slow loading sites. Google can downgrade your site if it loads slowly.
There are 3 common types of images used:
Flash:
Gif: has fewer colors and is therefore the smallest file. It is used for smaller simpler images JPEG: This image has more colors and is consequently larger. These files are used for images like photos
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Making files smaller
• Do not have too much flash on your site. • Make your graphics smaller • Make your files smaller
Cutting the flash: You are running a business site and as such you do not need to have flash. It looks glamorous no doubt but you can still have a professional looking site without it. It slows up your site and puts visitors off. They just do not have time to wait. A little on your header looks good and does not usually slow up the rest of the site.
Making smaller images: again this will not harm the look of your site and may even be a good thing for a business site. Visitors are there for information and content not any large graphics. They can even be quite distracting. Another thing to bear in mind, images cannot be read by the Googlebots so there can be some confusion for them. This is not what you want to get good Page Rank.
There is always an exception to the rule.
If you have an arts or a photography site you may have to have fairly large graphic files. These will be JPEG files and will need to be made smaller. This is called image compression. Basically this means that the amount of coding is reduced. The one drawback is that your image quality will be reduced. It is up to you how much you can compromise with quality or fast loading. You can also consider placing fewer images on the web page. You can also use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to reduce file size. You can still have your page loading fast and put more images and graphics with CSS.
With smaller files your site will load faster and Googlebots will read your site better. With a faster loading site Google will also view your website more favorably. Your Page Rank will rise and you will get a better position in the search engines.
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