Automaker Website Load Times 2 Jan 2010

[siegen]

I tend to visit manufacturers' websites quite often to gather facts about their cars and such. I'm sure most of your also do. Most of the time I am using my work computer, which has a mediocre business DSL Internet connection. I notice that some sites load fast while others load like slugs. I did this test about a year ago and decided I'd try it again. I timed each manufacturer's website load time using Internet Explorer 7, deleting the cache between each timing. I repeated the timing at least twice for the major manufacturers, and overall times were very consistent.

The first number is the time it takes before the vehicle selector is available, since this is the most important part of the website. All the images do not need to be loaded, just as long as an adequately loaded list of vehicles is available and clickable. The second time is the time for the site to finish loading all its major components. In some cases there may be an extra script running in the background (maybe a tracking script) -I did not include the time it took for those to complete in the overall time.

Some thoughts on this: Both the Honda and Acura websites loaded the quickest both to the selector page and overall. GM brands overall performed poorly. Everyone else, for the most part, fell around the 10-15 second range, with the exception of Scion and BMW.

[Paolino]

THANK YOU! For a couple of years I thought I would be the only one to notice that GM's sites in general were SLOW to load.

[Robert Hall]

Looks like www.gm.com has javascript, css, and Flash on the main page.

[siegen]

Also. For all the sites, I typed in their URLs directly (http://www.fordvehicles.com, http://www.gmc.com, http://www.bmwusa.com, etc) to eliminate as much browser/DNS latency as possible.

Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge websites were all very similar and had similar times. They appear to be all essentially the same site with a different skin.

Mazda, Mercury, Subaru, and VW sites had very fast load times to the vehicle selector element, but took a little while to get the rest of the main page elements loaded.

Edit: One last thing. Saab's website loaded much quicker in Firefox than IE7. There must be some sort of hang in IE7. GMC still took forever and a day.

Volvo and Infiniti also loaded decently on Firefox.

Edited January 12, 2010 by siegen

[mustang84]

I have really noticed how flash heavy websites have been getting the last few years. Especially when loaded up with complex flash ads, like the recent AT&T ones with the spinning globe...those just kill my browser, even though I have a quad core w/ a 9800GT video card, 4 gigs of memory, and 8 Mbs internet. Browser speed should be improving over time, not getting worse.

[Intrepidation]

Saab site loaded immediately for me.

[FAPTurbo]

I have really noticed how flash heavy websites have been getting the last few years. Especially when loaded up with complex flash ads, like the recent AT&T ones with the spinning globe...those just kill my browser, even though I have a quad core w/ a 9800GT video card, 4 gigs of memory, and 8 Mbs internet. Browser speed should be improving over time, not getting worse.

Thing is, your graphics card isn't being used to process a lot of the stuff on websites. Really, I think the real culprit is way too much crap going on inside the webpage. Simplicity is a good thing. Want proof?

www.google.com

[siegen]

Saab site loaded immediately for me.

Using what browser?

I mentioned above that it loaded much quicker in Firefox. I personally don't use IE7, but my Firefox is modified and I didn't want that to affect the load times. A good website should load the same on every browser.

The next list I may use Firefox. I would like to do a comparison between various browsers, but don't have the patience for something like that.

[Intrepidation]

Firefox 3.5.7

Was gonna try IE but it won't load, won't work on FF now either. =/