I have been seeing a bunch of page load delays recently and I believe they will continue to get worse based on what I saw.
Watching the headers load, it looks like almost all of the delays are from 3rd party sites Google, and Doubleclick. Doubleclick for the banners and google for the analytics.
It is hard to explain to a non-IT person, but it is easy to understand by anyone.
Here is how it goes,
A user requests a resource from the site. The user and site want to communicate as securely as possible, so they first try to handshake at the highest level of encryption. To explain it, lets say there are only 10 types/levels and 10 is the most secure.
The server responds to the client,
Can you talk at level 10? No
Can you talk at level 9? No.
Can you talk at level 8? No.
Can you talk at level 7? YES - ok, here is what you are looking for and it will be encrypted at level 7 for you.
What I found,
The delay ISN'T the site to us or us to the site.
The delay is the handshake with the 3rd party and the foundation framework the site runs on. You can literally watch every element load from each provider and the time it takes in the headers and the IP of the sending server.
So here is how it works with the site/server to google,
Site (before page loads for the user) sends google a tracking code for analytics and doubleclick for the advertising.
Google says,
Can you talk at level 10? The site says No
Can you talk at level 9? The site says No
Can you talk at level 8? The site says No
Can you talk at level 7? The site says No
Can you talk at level 6? The site says No
Can you talk at level 5? The site says No
Can you talk at level 4? The site says YES )current site and framework)
Normally this happens so fast the users do not see the transaction however the newer google servers no longer support level 4 AND they have been shutting down old servers that still support it. As more old ones are replaced, the delays will increase in time and frequency.
So depending on the server and time that you hit it, it can cause a delay (handing off to another server) or an outright timeout if the hand-off didn't work.
If the site turned off all 3rd party handshakes it would enable it to continue to limp along at level 4 without the delays.
Watching the headers load, it looks like almost all of the delays are from 3rd party sites Google, and Doubleclick. Doubleclick for the banners and google for the analytics.
It is hard to explain to a non-IT person, but it is easy to understand by anyone.
Here is how it goes,
A user requests a resource from the site. The user and site want to communicate as securely as possible, so they first try to handshake at the highest level of encryption. To explain it, lets say there are only 10 types/levels and 10 is the most secure.
The server responds to the client,
Can you talk at level 10? No
Can you talk at level 9? No.
Can you talk at level 8? No.
Can you talk at level 7? YES - ok, here is what you are looking for and it will be encrypted at level 7 for you.
What I found,
The delay ISN'T the site to us or us to the site.
The delay is the handshake with the 3rd party and the foundation framework the site runs on. You can literally watch every element load from each provider and the time it takes in the headers and the IP of the sending server.
So here is how it works with the site/server to google,
Site (before page loads for the user) sends google a tracking code for analytics and doubleclick for the advertising.
Google says,
Can you talk at level 10? The site says No
Can you talk at level 9? The site says No
Can you talk at level 8? The site says No
Can you talk at level 7? The site says No
Can you talk at level 6? The site says No
Can you talk at level 5? The site says No
Can you talk at level 4? The site says YES )current site and framework)
Normally this happens so fast the users do not see the transaction however the newer google servers no longer support level 4 AND they have been shutting down old servers that still support it. As more old ones are replaced, the delays will increase in time and frequency.
So depending on the server and time that you hit it, it can cause a delay (handing off to another server) or an outright timeout if the hand-off didn't work.
If the site turned off all 3rd party handshakes it would enable it to continue to limp along at level 4 without the delays.