- \n
- 79 percent of customers dissatisfied with website performance are less likely to purchase on the same site again<\/li>\n
- 47 percent of customers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less<\/li>\n
- One second delay in page load time means 11 percent loss of page views<\/li>\n
- One second improvement in page load time increases 7 percent conversion rate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Website performance is finally reflected in your sales data, and that makes it a CSF (Critical Success Factor) of your online business.<\/p>\n
Why Should You Monitor Your Website Performance from China?<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s important to monitor and optimize your website performance, but how different is it in China? The performance of a same website can be very different, when it\u2019s accessed from China and from the other areas around the world.<\/p>\n
There are only three landing stations of submarine cables to provide network services to nearly 1 billion Internet users in China. The entry\/exit communication traffic can be overwhelmed by limited international bandwidth and huge user number. During peak hours, early in the morning 8:00-10:00 and after dinner 17:00-22:00 UTC+8, Internet speed tends to get slower, and sometimes even out of service. Meanwhile, the Chinese government deploys the Great Firewall<\/a> to block access to certain foreign websites and services, as well as to take control of data and information exchanged via it. Obviously, it also slows down your website speed, and might even block your online services in China if rules are not properly followed.<\/p>\n
To ensure your website acts as normal as possible when accessed from China, it\u2019s a good practice to pay special attention to your website performance in China.<\/p>\n
How Does Your Website Look from Users in China?<\/h2>\n
The good news is there are website monitoring tools specially designed to solve this problem. You may start your diagnosis from our free speed test tool<\/a>, and no sign up is required.\u00a0 For this article, we ran a speed test for the TED website<\/a> as the target website. The test period is morning peak hours during 08:00 \u2013 10:00 in Shanghai (UTC+8), and night peak hours during 20:00 \u2013 22:00 in New York (UTC-4).\u00a0 Below is a summary of the performance, along with waterfall charts, of the TED site from Shanghai and New York.<\/p>\n
Shanghai<\/h3>\n
\n\n
\n Items<\/strong><\/td>\n 1st Test<\/strong><\/p>\n 08:30<\/strong><\/td>\n
2nd Test<\/strong><\/p>\n 09:00<\/strong><\/td>\n
3rd Test<\/strong><\/p>\n 09:40<\/strong><\/td>\n
Comments<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n First Visit<\/strong><\/td>\n 10.9 Sec<\/td>\n 38.1 Sec<\/td>\n 8.1 Sec<\/td>\n Avg 19.0 Sec<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Repeat Visit<\/strong><\/td>\n 4.1 Sec<\/td>\n 4.9 Sec<\/td>\n 6.4 Sec<\/td>\n Avg 5.1 Sec<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Number of Hosts Connected<\/strong><\/td>\n 46<\/td>\n 48<\/td>\n 47<\/td>\n Different problems happened in different hosts each time.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Main Performance Issues<\/strong><\/td>\n DNS Time<\/p>\n SSL Time<\/p>\n
First Byte Time<\/p>\n
Response Time<\/td>\n
DNS Time<\/p>\n SSL Time<\/p>\n
First Byte Time<\/p>\n
Response Time<\/td>\n
SSL Time<\/p>\n First Byte Time<\/p>\n
Response Time<\/td>\n
DNS Time: waiting for data from DNS.<\/p>\n SSL Time: SSL\/TLS negotiation issue.<\/p>\n
First Byte Time: waiting to get content.<\/p>\n
Response Time: response to download is slow.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Errors<\/strong><\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n Images (.gif) were unavailable for legal reasons.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n ![\"Shanghai](\"https:\/\/www.dotcom-monitor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/06\/Shanghai-speed-test.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt normally took more than 10 seconds to fully load the page. That\u2019s the major drawback when accessing overseas websites from China. Luckily, the time was shortened to within five seconds when accessing in a cached mode.\u00a0 As a website that hosts a ton of videos, it\u2019s impressive that TED provides its service with nearly 50 servers. However, since the complex Internet structure in China, each host\u2019s performance was unstable.\u00a0 The waterfall chart showed four main performance issues.<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, the DNS issue might be caused by the transfer speed of the web server being too slow or resource size being too large. It could be solved by the use of CDN. The SSL issue means the need to optimize TLS performance. The first byte issue suggested moving the static content to a CDN. The response time might be caused by the large resource, and reducing the file size may help to solve the problem. For a deep dive into waterfall charts, read our blog<\/a>.\u00a0 The same two images were constantly blocked for legal reasons. Their content should be rechecked to pass the network audit in China.<\/p>\n
![\"ted.com](\"https:\/\/www.dotcom-monitor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/06\/ted.com-image-error.png\")
<\/p>\nNew York<\/h3>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.dotcom-monitor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/06\/New-York-speed-test-TED.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Page](\"https:\/\/www.dotcom-monitor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/06\/Page-Speed-Insights.png\")
<\/p>\n