A slow loading website does no one any good. Users to a slow loading website do not have the patience to wait for a site to load and for website owners it is one of the factors that is put together to determine your SEO score, which determines where your website is listed on a search engine. A webpage’s load time is one of the things that we take into consideration of at Nicely Done Sites when we build a website. But did you know what the number one thing is that causes a slow loading website?
Ads.
Ads Slowing Down The Web
A recent research project done by developer Patrick Hulce analyzed one million websites to look at the impact of third party scripts on websites and to identify which ones are detrimental to performance. He found that third party scripts account for a majority of scripts found on the web, about 65% according to Hulce.
Some of the scripts were unable to be identified as to their purpose but of the scripts that were able to get identified. Ads were the largest block of scripts. All of these scripts add time to how long the website takes to load. It may not seem like much but this can be a major issue.
Not All Ads Scripts Were Bad
Some scripts were not so bad, Scorecard Research took only 90ms to load and Criteo took 137ms to load. Others were not so good. 33 Across took 1170 ms to load, Popads took 1245 ms to load and WordAds took a whopping 2543 ms. That is over two seconds and in today’s Internet age that is an eternity. Considering most users wait for no more than 3 seconds for a site to load this amount of time wasted is not a good look.
While some other scripts can take several hundred milliseconds to load nothing else really comes close from top to bottom with Ads. Now its not that ads in general are bad, some of the services load quickly and the revenue generated can be a nice additional revenue stream. But don’t forget that some people do not want to be bombarded with ads and may avoid your site or just ignore the ads. Many of these people use some sort of Ad or Popup blocker and that can lead to issues with the functionality of the website.
Are Ads On My Website Worth It?
Is website advertising worth it? It can be a powerful tool to drive traffic to someone, who pays you for each click on the website. If you have a well-trafficked website this can be potentially a nice source of revenue, even if it is small. For smaller websites it may not be worth it. Many users find them distracting, not aesthetically pleasing and just downright off putting. It’s not a good look and for any website that garners less than 200 views per day it is probably not worth it. Most websites are better off without ads.
There are numerous Ad plugins available for WordPress. These may seem like a great potential source of income but are the unintended consequences worth it? Only you can answer that. The cash might seem nice but a drop in SEO rankings and loss of viewers can hurt you far more.