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3 Ways to Improve Your Website for Cyber Monday

Sven Hammar

As organizations understand the findings of the Cyber Monday Web Performance Index and look to improve their site performance for the next Cyber Monday shopping day, I wanted to offer a few recommendations to help any organization improve in 2017:

Start with 3 Key Findings from the Cyber Monday Web Performance Index

1. Top-Performing Sites Don't Rely on Third-Party Scripts as Much

Relying on third-party hosts for scripts on busy traffic days creates problems for site performance. For example, if your site is pulling a third-party hosted jQuery script share with other sites, the increased traffic from all those other sites can slow down the third-party server and kill page load time.

The number of requested domains matters as well. In the case of the Apple store home page, the browser connects to just 4 domains, all controlled by Apple, whereas The GAP's website pulls content from 74 different domains located all over the world. While some third-party content may be too burdensome to develop internally, content that can be should be.

2. The Servers Are Faster and Closer to the Visitor

Just because you can access the site quickly in San Diego doesn't mean a customer in New York is having the same experience. The physical distance between the visitor and server matters. The test found, for example, that Avon's website takes about 1.8 seconds just to initially respond, while HomeDepot.com takes 300ms. The best-performing sites leverage Content Delivery Networks to bring the content to servers closer to their audience, dramatically improving load times. 

3. Faster Sites Structure Web Pages So Content Loads Before Scripts Run

Scripts can interfere with the web browser's rendering process and significantly increase load times. For instance, when a browser encounters an image, it can start the download process and move on to the rest of the page; however, the browser has to stop and wait for a script to load before continuing. It's a best practice, then, to put scripts at the end of the page so the DOM can finish (or come close) before needing to pause.

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Much like a traditional factory turns raw materials into finished products, the AI factory turns vast datasets into actionable business outcomes through advanced models, inferences, and automation. From the earliest data inputs to the final token output, this process must be reliable, repeatable, and scalable. That requires industrializing the way AI is developed, deployed, and managed ...

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For many B2B and B2C enterprise brands, technology isn't a core strength. Relying on overly complex architectures (like those that follow a pure MACH doctrine) has been flagged by industry leaders as a source of operational slowdown, creating bottlenecks that limit agility in volatile market conditions ...

3 Ways to Improve Your Website for Cyber Monday

Sven Hammar

As organizations understand the findings of the Cyber Monday Web Performance Index and look to improve their site performance for the next Cyber Monday shopping day, I wanted to offer a few recommendations to help any organization improve in 2017:

Start with 3 Key Findings from the Cyber Monday Web Performance Index

1. Top-Performing Sites Don't Rely on Third-Party Scripts as Much

Relying on third-party hosts for scripts on busy traffic days creates problems for site performance. For example, if your site is pulling a third-party hosted jQuery script share with other sites, the increased traffic from all those other sites can slow down the third-party server and kill page load time.

The number of requested domains matters as well. In the case of the Apple store home page, the browser connects to just 4 domains, all controlled by Apple, whereas The GAP's website pulls content from 74 different domains located all over the world. While some third-party content may be too burdensome to develop internally, content that can be should be.

2. The Servers Are Faster and Closer to the Visitor

Just because you can access the site quickly in San Diego doesn't mean a customer in New York is having the same experience. The physical distance between the visitor and server matters. The test found, for example, that Avon's website takes about 1.8 seconds just to initially respond, while HomeDepot.com takes 300ms. The best-performing sites leverage Content Delivery Networks to bring the content to servers closer to their audience, dramatically improving load times. 

3. Faster Sites Structure Web Pages So Content Loads Before Scripts Run

Scripts can interfere with the web browser's rendering process and significantly increase load times. For instance, when a browser encounters an image, it can start the download process and move on to the rest of the page; however, the browser has to stop and wait for a script to load before continuing. It's a best practice, then, to put scripts at the end of the page so the DOM can finish (or come close) before needing to pause.

APM

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CEOs are committed to advancing AI solutions across their organization even as they face challenges from accelerating technology adoption, according to the IBM CEO Study. The survey revealed that executive respondents expect the growth rate of AI investments to more than double in the next two years, and 61% confirm they are actively adopting AI agents today and preparing to implement them at scale ...

Image
IBM

 

A major architectural shift is underway across enterprise networks, according to a new global study from Cisco. As AI assistants, agents, and data-driven workloads reshape how work gets done, they're creating faster, more dynamic, more latency-sensitive, and more complex network traffic. Combined with the ubiquity of connected devices, 24/7 uptime demands, and intensifying security threats, these shifts are driving infrastructure to adapt and evolve ...

Image
Cisco

The development of banking apps was supposed to provide users with convenience, control and piece of mind. However, for thousands of Halifax customers recently, a major mobile outage caused the exact opposite, leaving customers unable to check balances, or pay bills, sparking widespread frustration. This wasn't an isolated incident ... So why are these failures still happening? ...

Cyber threats are growing more sophisticated every day, and at their forefront are zero-day vulnerabilities. These elusive security gaps are exploited before a fix becomes available, making them among the most dangerous threats in today's digital landscape ... This guide will explore what these vulnerabilities are, how they work, why they pose such a significant threat, and how modern organizations can stay protected ...

The prevention of data center outages continues to be a strategic priority for data center owners and operators. Infrastructure equipment has improved, but the complexity of modern architectures and evolving external threats presents new risks that operators must actively manage, according to the Data Center Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute ...

As observability engineers, we navigate a sea of telemetry daily. We instrument our applications, configure collectors, and build dashboards, all in pursuit of understanding our complex distributed systems. Yet, amidst this flood of data, a critical question often remains unspoken, or at best, answered by gut feeling: "Is our telemetry actually good?" ... We're inviting you to participate in shaping a foundational element for better observability: the Instrumentation Score ...

We're inching ever closer toward a long-held goal: technology infrastructure that is so automated that it can protect itself. But as IT leaders aggressively employ automation across our enterprises, we need to continuously reassess what AI is ready to manage autonomously and what can not yet be trusted to algorithms ...

Much like a traditional factory turns raw materials into finished products, the AI factory turns vast datasets into actionable business outcomes through advanced models, inferences, and automation. From the earliest data inputs to the final token output, this process must be reliable, repeatable, and scalable. That requires industrializing the way AI is developed, deployed, and managed ...

Almost half (48%) of employees admit they resent their jobs but stay anyway, according to research from Ivanti ... This has obvious consequences across the business, but we're overlooking the massive impact of resenteeism and presenteeism on IT. For IT professionals tasked with managing the backbone of modern business operations, these numbers spell big trouble ...

For many B2B and B2C enterprise brands, technology isn't a core strength. Relying on overly complex architectures (like those that follow a pure MACH doctrine) has been flagged by industry leaders as a source of operational slowdown, creating bottlenecks that limit agility in volatile market conditions ...