[This post was originally published on BusinessInsider.com on 6/21/2011]

Father’s Day is a time to celebrate fatherhood and all of its joys.  It?s also a time to give thanks ? and celebrate fatherhood. For most men, that thanks may come in the form of some of their favorite gifts.  For dad, some of the gifts that come to mind include barbeque items, sports tickets and more tangible things like home and auto improvement tools.

Many fathers and their loved ones are increasingly buying on the Internet.  Whether it is on the couch, in front of the TV, out on the deck or in the office, the Web has become an indispensible resource where so much of our time, and money, is spent.  Time is money and slow websites can slow down ecommerce, sports scores and other popular reasons for using the web.  We thought it might be interesting to look at the site speed and page load times of some of the most popular websites that dad?s might visit.

Each site was assigned a score which measures several aspects of web page load speed, as experienced by the website visitor. This score factors in how fast the site displays the page title, the time it takes for core content to appear and the time it takes for the page to be fully usable (?time to interact?.)  This score ranges from 0 to 100. A higher score means a better page load user experience. Looking at the chart we can clearly see that sites vary greatly in their Web performance.  We looked at a diverse set of websites including those of the following companies: Jiffy Lube, Weber, Porsche, NFL, ESPN, Dominos, Ticketmaster, Harley Davidson, PGA, Omaha Steaks, Home Depot, Veriozon FiOS, MLB and NASCAR.

Congrats to Weber, the maker of barbeques, whose site was the fastest in our benchmark.

Fortunately, Jiffy Lube ? whose brand name signals seed and convenience – also had a fast loading site: JiffyLube.com loads in an astounding 1.94 seconds . Other fast websites include Porsche, and the National Football League (NFL).   We found it very interesting that while the NFL has a fast website, other sporting sites did not, including the PGA and Major League Baseball (MLB).  We find it hard to believe that a service like Verizon FiOS would have a slow website ? their promise of speed is not the first impression they make when a visitor goes to their page.  It takes over 8 seconds for the FiOS website to load and become usable.

Meanwhile, the fastest action on TV has the slowest website on the Web at over 12 seconds; NASCAR.com is not living up to its full potential to engage with its online fans.

For fathers, and their family members, time spent waiting for a web page to load, adds stress and means time away from loved ones.

Like this benchmark?  Are you interested in how fast your website is or the website of your competitor? Find out at
www.yottaa.com