Website size?

[IceQueen]

Hi! : )

I'm making a website, and while trying to make it both quick and nice-looking, I noticed that my images' file size were too big. Unfortunately, I cannot always make the file size smaller since I am forced to use gifs, and I am forced to use those images.

So I'm wondering, how big should each of my web pages be?

Is 300 kb alright?
Do I have to drop down to 200 kb?
Or does it have to be below 100 kb?

I've checked many web pages, and the file size is very different. So how big should it be if I want the website to run well?

Thanks!

[Mr J]

Those three sizes are way too big, I would have thought somewhere in the region of 30KB to take into account dial-up users

[NogDog]

I'd agree that 300KB is probably way to much, especially if it's the home page or other main page that is likely to be a visitor's first access to your site. You don't want them getting impatient and deciding to browse elsewhere instead of waiting for your page to download.

300,000 bytes * (8 bits / byte) * (1 second / 56,000 bits per second) = 43 seconds to download via a 56kbs modem -- and that's absolute best case without including any of the "overhead" communications that go on between the browser and web server.

[humbug]

... I cannot always make the file size smaller since I am forced to use gifs, and I am forced to use those images...

Can you be more precise about these limitations? Are these animated gifs? Or are you using the transparency property of gifs?

As a sometimes dial-up user, I have to say I find that downloading someone's bloated advert is extremely irksome. I do not exonerate WebDeveloper.com from that criticism. How long does that Microsoft movie take to load?

[vinnydarat]

you could always look at simplifying your home page and spreading the content over some other pages.

[toicontien]

I think the allowable total size for a page can vary depending on the content it contains. If you have lots of images relevant to the content (i.e. not decorative) 300kb is not too horrible. If you've got that kind of file size and it's coming from decorative graphics, you either need to look into different graphics types for your images (simple colors and line drawings should be GIFs, photos and multi-hue should be JPEG) or find out how to make tileable background images where necessary.

Do you have a link to such a page, or is this purely a rhetorical question?