3rd Parties

How To Make A Slow Website: An Expert Guide

Post date 10/21/2011

Author Jeremy Martin

Ever wonder how you can make a slow website even slower? Look no further, as we have comprised a simple step-by-step guide to achieve just that.

You may not know, but the Web is complicated. Over 100+ factors affect the performance and speed of a website. Everything from users to browsers and CDNs to website code to data centers impact the web application delivery chain. This is great news for you, though, as you control a multitude of areas that impact your website speed. You have a significant amount of power and opportunity to make an amazingly slow website!

So, let’s dive right into several easy ways you can do so:

Increase the Number of Server Requests

Fill your slow website with heavy visual design. We’re talking gratuitous animation, motion and hover effects, and graphics instead of styled text or code. Who cares about SEO, anyway? This will require more resources to be downloaded to the user’s client, such as HTML/CSS/JavaScript files and images. These added assets and features will bog down your website, and cause it to be super-slow.

Beef Up with Fat Resources

Start at the source. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are necessary files required to load a website. Add some bulk with lots of comments and excessive white space in the code. Images are another key to making a slow website. Always use the highest quality settings, and use images larger than the display area of a webpage. Also, turn off the gzip compression on your server. No need for small file sizes; the bigger, the better.

Use Bad Servers

A bad server is comprised of several components. As previously mentioned, poorly written code is a surefire way to slow down your website. Inefficient database design will help, too. Spread the wealth and share a server with lots of other websites. Older servers can’t process as fast, either. So, make your files big and servers old. Not having enough storage space or memory will also cause havoc.

Avoid Monitoring Performance

At times, websites act random. Some users may experience fast load times while others experience slow ones. After all, it only takes one resource to slow down your website. Monitoring for such occurrences provides the opportunity to fix any inconsistencies. It’s better if you don’t know, so make sure you are not monitoring your website.

Do Not Use Caching

The web allows you to specify which resources the browser will cache on a user’s machine. Ignore that piece of information. This way, by not specifying cache control correctly, the browser will need to load resources for every page. Clever, huh?

Have A Third Party JavaScript Party

Use blogging software such as WordPress? Install lots of third party JavaScript plugins (even if they are of questionable value.) Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ . . . you name it, plug it in. After all, who doesn’t love a more social and interactive website? Also, be sure to utilize synchronous, blocking third party scripts. That way, the page stops loading altogether while unreliable third party JavaScripts try to deliver a response!

For a Slow Website, Do These Additional Little Things Like . . .

Redirect from www to non-www using client-side (302 redirection instead of 301)
Add requests to resources that do not exist (404)
Run lots of JavaScript code while your page is loading
Test your website speed solely from your desktop
Just believe your website is fast or good enough
Trust your developers. They’ve got it all under control, right?

So, there you have it. In just a few steps, you could well be on your way to a slow website with high bounce rates, user dissatisfaction, and endless load times! The slow website you have always dreamed of is now within your grasp.