Speed in digital marketing en

The Business Case For Speed In Digital Marketing
The Business Case for
Speed in Digital Marketing
In this report you will learn:
• Best practice for digital content acceleration
• Where to find tools to identify your own website’s performance
• The available solutions for web acceleration
• How front-end acceleration can speed up website downloads on any device
May 2012
Thom Poole
International Marketing Director
Limelight Networks Inc.
London Office:
+44 (0)207 437 1617
Paris Office:
+33 (0) 149 973 318
Munich Office:
+49 89 89058480

www.limelight.com

The Business Case for Speed in Digital Marketing | Page 2
Contents
Contents........................................................................................2
A Brief History of Speed................................................................3
Why Invest In Web Acceleration?..............................................4
Determinants Of Website Page Speed .....................................5
The Business Case For Speed ......................................................7
Impact of Infrastructure.............................................................22
The Unique Limelight Web Acceleration Solution ..................26
Glossary .......................................................................................29
Sources ........................................................................................35
About Limelight Networks:
Limelight Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:LLNW) is a trusted provider of
integrated cloud-based applications that leverage Limelight’s
scalable, high-performance, global computing platform. We give
organisations whose Internet, mobile, and social initiatives are
absolutely critical to their success a complete solution to upload,
manage, publish, monetise, accelerate, and analyse their online and
mobile content. The Limelight team of experts and end-to-end offering
allow customers to streamline all of the processes throughout the
content lifecycle and optimise the performance of content across all
channels — empowering them to quickly and cost-effectively
orchestrate a successful digital presence that improves brand
awareness, drives revenue, and enhances customer relationships.

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A Brief History of Speed
When the commercial Internet started in the early 1990’s, no one
was sure what to make of it. In the early days we endured dial-
up modems that dropped off every so often. Websites were
basic and relatively small in their footprint. Pages were basic
black on white, Courier typeface and no images.
Today we are demanding websites to deliver rich media content
– immediately, conveniently and consistently. If a website fails to
do this, visitors soon give up!
Web pages are getting ‘fatter’, but are also getting faster thanks
to faster networks, connections and browsers. Typical retail
websites download in between 3 to 6 seconds. The ideal is
2 seconds.I
Where do you stand?
Key Findings
1. Customers expect your content –
NOW
2. Every delay loses conversions,
revenue, and customer satisfaction
3. Mobile commerce is even more
sensitive to network latency
4. Content Delivery Network (CDN),
network acceleration and
presentation layer optimisation
services are vital
5. Reducing download waiting times
is critical to digital satisfaction

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Why Invest In Web Acceleration?
Web acceleration services are designed to accelerate non-
cacheable content and offload objects through cached
storage if at all possible – and this is still a major technique today.
But in this mobile economy – where is close to the user?
As the complexity of websites has grown, the potential for delay
has increased. Excessive noise in the media landscape also
means many sites are trying to drive more engagement through
personalisation, thus creating more opportunities to interact – if
the user can wait!
With so many different browsers, caches, networks, devices and
connection speeds involved in the modern Internet, a single set
of HTML optimisations does not fit all eventualities.
Your page views, bounce rates, customer conversions, customer
satisfaction and, most importantly, profitability, are at stake. This
‘Business Case for Speed in Digital Marketing’ will demonstrate
this.
Websiteoptimization.com has found top online brands saying the
same thing.II
Google found that moving from a 10-result page loading in
0.4 seconds to a 30-result page loading in 0.9 seconds
decreased traffic and advertising revenues by 20%.III
When the home page of Google Maps was reduced from
100KB to 70-80KB, traffic went up 10% in the first week, and
an additional 25% in the following three weeks.IV
Amazon tests revealed that for every 100milliseconds
increase in load time sales decreased by 1%.V
In a study by the Aberdeen Group, a 1 second delay results
in11% fewer page views; 16% reduction in customer satis-
faction and most importantly, 7% loss in conversions. They
calculated that for a site earning $100,000 per day, the site
could lose $2.5 million per year in sales.VI

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Determinants Of Website Page Speed
Popular browser plugins can highlight key areas of performance.
Unfortunately, they only highlight them! Industry recommend-
ations to the issues include:
1. Minimise the number of HTTP requests
This means limiting the number of files required to display on your
web page. This can also mean reducing the size of the pages
and limiting the choices on each page.
Files include CSS files, JavaScript references, images, video, etc.
Recommendation: eliminate everything that is unnecessary – the
extra load-time for a ‘nice-to-have’ may not be worth it.
2. Optimise and correctly display images
This means making images and video files as small as possible
without losing quality. Size them correctly for the device so the
browser doesn’t have to load and resize content.
Many images can contain extraneous metadata downloaded
by devices. Compression can also help.
3. Minimise HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Remove the white space from your code. It is useful when
programming, but servers and browsers don’t care about this,
and it just adds time!
4. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A CDN will help reduce the load on your servers and turbo-
charge the performance by delivering cached objects from a
nearby server.
A CDN is a network of high-performance servers around the
world that cache website assets (code, images, etc.) locally in a
Point of Presence (POP).

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5. Compress components
Compress your files at the server level before sending them to
the user. The greater the compression, the smaller the file size,
and the faster the download.
6. Put style sheets at the top of pages
All ‘interface-related’ style sheet (CSS) references should be
included in the <head> of your document. If you have separate
style sheets, use a <link> command as opposed @import.
When the style sheet instructions are in the <head>, customers
will see a styled page from the start – the appearance of your
site will load first.
7. Put scripts at the bottom of pages
All functionality-related files should be loaded after the content.
Let visitors see the content as quickly as possible – if they like
that, they’ll be reading/watching this whilst the functional files
load.
Because of the way browsers function, scripts hold up render
time, whilst the browsers process these scripts. Putting the scripts
at the bottom of the page allows the browser to build the page
first.
8. Utilise browser caching
Use the browser’s ability to store static files so that the second
and subsequent pages load quicker. This involves instructing the
browser to hang on to particular files, images, etc.
This is part of site coding, not the infrastructure.
9. Use CSS sprites
A CSS sprite is an image comprising other images used in the
page design. It maps co-ordinates of images on the page to
speed loading.
Source: Willie Jackson – willejackson.com

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The Business Case For Speed
Technical Case
How much do you spend (time, effort and money) on optimising
your websites for search engines? Google announced that they
consider speed when determining search engine rankings, so a
slow load-time will impact whether you appear on page 1 or
10!VII
Speed is vital, as Web accessibility guru, Jakob Nielsen identified.
He shows two reasons why responsiveness matters:
• Human limitations – especially in the areas of memory and
attention. We don’t perform as well if we have to wait and
‘suffer’ the inevitable decay of information stored in short-
term memory
• Human aspirations – we like to feel as though we control our
own destiny rather than be subjugated to a computer’s
whims. Also, when companies make us wait instead of
providing responsive services, they can appear arrogant or
incompetent VIII
There are three response-time limits identified by Nielsen,
originating in 1968 but which still hold true:
0.1 seconds
This gives a feeling of instantaneous response, as if the user,
not the computer, caused it. This level of responsiveness is
essential to support the feeling of direct manipulation (one of
the key GUI techniques to increase user engagement and
control).
1 second
This keeps the user’s flow of thought seamless. Users can
sense a delay, and thus know the computer is generating the
outcome, but still feel as though they control the overall
experience. This degree of responsiveness is needed for
good navigation.
10 seconds
This keeps the user’s attention. From 1-10 seconds, users
definitely feel at the mercy of the computer and wish it was
faster, but this is still manageable.

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Anything over a ten-second delay, and users start thinking of
other things, making it harder to get back on track when the
computer does finally respond. A ten-second plus delay will
often make users leave the site immediately.
In a survey carried out in 2011 by the global tag management
company – TagMan – over 80% of respondents are concerned
or very concerned about their company page load speeds, and
60% claim to have undertaken some steps to improve their site
speed, but feel they could still do more.IX
Respondents ranked the impact of slow loading sites as:
1. Reduced conversions – 51%
2. Visitor abandonment – 46%
3. Perceived negative brand experience – 47%
4. Reduced repeat visits – 49%
5. Switching to competitive sites – 40%
6. Other mentions: negative impact on search engine
optimisation (SEO)
The measures that the survey found respondents had taken to
improve site speed included:
• Optimising page code – 63%
• Performance monitoring – 56%
• Reducing the page ‘weight’ – 55%
• Reducing or removing third-party tags – 35%
• Increase the number of web servers/locations – 22%
• Site acceleration – 22%
• Unsure – 9%
• Other – 3%

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Performance of web and mobile web pages is also measured in
terms of the bounce rate – i.e. the number of users who leave
the first page without exploring the page or site in any greater
detail.
This data came from a web acceleration provider – Strange-
loop.X Other surveys and studies confirm this – more of that later.
There is a dramatic relationship between landing page speed,
bounce rate and pages viewed per visit.
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The Business Case for Speed in Digital Marketing Share this report: | Page 9
Performance of web and mobile web pages is also measured in
terms of the bounce rate – i.e. the number of users who leave
the first page without exploring the page or site in any greater
detail.
This data came from a web acceleration provider – Strange-
loop.X Other surveys and studies confirm this – more of that later.
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The most important result from these statistics is that the
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The most important result from these statistics is that the
conversion rate falls-off at a greater rate.
Browsers
Your customers need to use the best browsers to ensure that your
digital content loads fast. Pages load 29% faster in Microsoft
Internet Explorer 9 than in IE7. Internet Explorer 9 also outperforms
Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.XI
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Browsers
Your customers need to use the best browsers to ensure that your
digital content loads fast. Pages load 29% faster in Microsoft
Internet Explorer 9 than in IE7. Internet Explorer 9 also outperforms
Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.XI

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Financial Case
Any delay is likely to cause a drop in revenue – it’s just like
queuing at a checkout, but without being able to see any other
free or shorter checkouts?
The Aberdeen Group identified that a drop in business perform-
ance begins after a mere 5.1 seconds delay.
For every one-second delay over the perceived average, a
company can expect the following loss of performance:
1-second delay in page load time
7% loss in customer conversions
11% fewer page impressions (probably
with an associated increase in bounce
rate)
16% drop in customer satisfaction
Source: Aberdeen GroupXII
The Aberdeen Group also identified that an increase in dynamic
web content and the emergence of ‘Web 2.0’ applications
have an impact on the web performance in a number of
different ways.

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Tests undertaken at Amazon revealed that for every 100ms delay
in load time, sales revenue decreased by 1%. Using the 7% figure
from the Aberdeen report amounts to an annual loss of US$2.5
million for sites that earn $100,000 per day.XIII
The loss in conversion rate is probably the most worrying for
online marketers. Conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who
convert from a casual content view or visit into the desired
action.
When the page-load time increases, likely conversion rates drop
by 6.7%, peaking at approx. 2 seconds. If we look at this from the
other point of view – every second longer that a web page
takes to download, the higher the chance of page
abandonment.XIV
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Tests undertaken at Amazon revealed that for every 100ms delay
in load time, sales revenue decreased by 1%. Using the 7% figure
from the Aberdeen report amounts to an annual loss of US$2.5
million for sites that earn $100,000 per day.XIII
The loss in conversion rate is probably the most worrying for
online marketers. Conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who
convert from a casual content view or visit into the desired
action.
When the page-load time increases, likely conversion rates drop
by 6.7%, peaking at approx. 2 seconds. If we look at this from the
other point of view – every second longer that a web page
takes to download, the higher the chance of page
abandonment.XIV
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The abandonment rate is the percentage of visitors that start the
‘sales funnel’ (conversion process) but fail to complete it.
Download Speeds
As web pages increase in size, download speeds are shown to
suffer, even if the static information is cached.
First view of a web page in 2010 took
an average of 11.21 seconds.
The second (and subsequent) view
took 5.21 seconds
First view in 2011 was 10% faster than
the previous year, mainly thanks to
acceleration techniques
The second view took 6,6 seconds –
20% slower than the previous year.
According to Alexa.com, the top ranked sites are slower than
the rest due to requesting, on average, 21 more resources. The
top 100 sites took 4% longer than the top 2000.XV
Because the sites are requesting up to 35% more resources, this
must mean that they are employing some other forms of
acceleration to make up for it.
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The abandonment rate is the percentage of visitors that start the
‘sales funnel’ (conversion process) but fail to complete it.
Download Speeds
As web pages increase in size, download speeds are shown to
suffer, even if the static information is cached.
First view of a web page in 2010 took
an average of 11.21 seconds.
The second (and subsequent) view
took 5.21 seconds
First view in 2011 was 10% faster than
the previous year, mainly thanks to
acceleration techniques
The second view took 6,6 seconds –
20% slower than the previous year.
According to Alexa.com, the top ranked sites are slower than
the rest due to requesting, on average, 21 more resources. The
top 100 sites took 4% longer than the top 2000.XV
Because the sites are requesting up to 35% more resources, this
must mean that they are employing some other forms of
acceleration to make up for it.
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Performance
So how do the top websites actually perform across Europe? We
have focused on the retail sector, as the economic pitfalls are
most acute.
United Kingdom
Rank Site Response
(secs)
1. Tesco UK 0.692
2. BizRate 0.750
3. IKEA UK 0.916
Average 2.188
Germany
Rank Site Response
1. Mercateo DE 0.735
2. Preisroboter DE 0.810
3. Alternate DE 0.855
Average 2.341
France
Rank Site Response
1. Amazon 1.076
2. Voyage-SNCF.com 1.240
3. Darty 1.394
Average 3.017
Switzerland
Rank Site Response
1. Team Viewer 0.573
2. Prixmoinscher 0.763
3. LeShop 0.918
Average 2.596
Netherlands
Rank Site Response
1. GSMweb.nl 0.337
2. Arcandor AG 0.349
3. Kijkshop.nl 0.628
Average 2.148

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Italy
Rank Site Response
1. Prada 1.109
2. Gucci 1.715
3. Replay 1.718
Average 3.193
Denmark
Rank Site Response
1. Apple Denmark 1.191
2. IKEA 1.299
3. Cappelendamm 1.461
Average 3.120
Finland
Rank Site Response
1. IKEA 1.076
2. Boozt.com 1.303
3. Ellos 1.349
Average 3.209
Norway
Rank Site Response
1. IKEA 1.695
2. Apple 1.747
3. Cappelendamm 2.111
Average 3.232
Sweden
Rank Site Response
1. Komplett 0.916
2. Expert International 0.961
3. ValueClick Inc 1.141
Average 2.782
Source: Gomez Benchmarking
Collected: March 01, 2012 - April 01, 2012 / 0:00 - midnight EST

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Availability of your content is, as we have seen, very important,
but availability is not just related to the download speed of each
page. If you are using a hosting company, or data centre that
has poor performance, your site could be down when your
customers are looking for you.
Looking at the popular ecommerce brands, any downtime
causes an eye-watering potential loss:
Amazon.com – Could lose nearly $1 million per hour if downXVI
General Financial Company - $100,000 per hour (52.3% of FS
companies)XVII
eBay - $90,000 per hour (based on a 22 hour outage)XVIII
General Network - $42,000 per hourXIX

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Mobile Websites
The modern digital environment has changed considerably from
one where we were all tied to our desks, to one where mobility is
the order of the day.
In 2000, mobile websites using WAP technology were
cumbersome and graphically and interactively light. With the
advent of new technology and smartphone handsets, the online
experience of a pocket-sized device can rival many
‘computers’.
The launch of the Apple iPhone, and latterly the iPad has
exploded the smartphone and tablet markets. By 2011, the
market for ‘PC tablets’ was said to have touched $35.3 billion.
According to InSat research, tablets, notebook PC’s and
smartphones are set to see a compound annual growth rate of
25.7% until 2015. The mobile [only] market is projected to see
8.7% growth in the same period.XX
Smartphones account for the smallest share of the global
market, but the largest share of mobile web usage – something
that is only set to grow as tablets and ‘mobile computing’
expands.
Mobile Browsers XXI

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There is, however, still one big difference in the patience of users.
Given that a mobile handset is such a personal item, delays in
downloading content is an even greater inconvenience than on
a ‘computer’. Coupled with this is the fact that many mobile
networks charge extra for data downloads, so wasted time also
means wasted money when customers abandon their pages!
Source: KISSmetric Infographic XXII
Page abandonment is even more prevalent for mobile websites,
with most responses to a Gomez survey saying that they would
wait 6-10 seconds before abandoning the page completely.
Mobile web performances are as follows:
United Kingdom
Rank Site Response
1. Nextag 3.218
2. Shopping UK 3.279
3. Carphone Warehouse 3.506
Average 6.603
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There is, however, still one big difference in the patience of users.
Given that a mobile handset is such a personal item, delays in
downloading content is an even greater inconvenience than on
a ‘computer’. Coupled with this is the fact that many mobile
networks charge extra for data downloads, so wasted time also
means wasted money when customers abandon their pages!
Source: KISSmetric Infographic XXII
Page abandonment is even more prevalent for mobile websites,
with most responses to a Gomez survey saying that they would
wait 6-10 seconds before abandoning the page completely.
Mobile web performances are as follows:
United Kingdom
Rank Site Response
1. Nextag 3.218
2. Shopping UK 3.279
3. Carphone Warehouse 3.506
Average 6.603
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Germany
Rank Site Response
1. Ciao DE 8.665
2. Idealo DE 8.903
3. NexTag DE 9.005
Average 17.994
France
Rank Site Response
1. Fnac 1.598
2. Amazon 3.788
3. Darty 9.062
Average 25.581
Source: Gomez Benchmarking
Collected: March 01, 2012 - April 01, 2012 / 0:00 - midnight EST
Psychological Case
The reason that people abandon slow loading web pages is
down to the frustration that the computer/network is in control.
This is even worse when there is a lack of feedback on why the
delay is occurring.
A survey showed that 43% of narrowband users were prepared
to wait more than six seconds for their content to load – that is
50% more than broadband shoppers.XXIII
A phrase that another study coined was the ‘Tolerable Wait
Time’ (TWT), which found that abandonment of non-working links
without feedback peaked at 5-6 seconds. Adding feedback,
such as a progress bar, increased the TWT to an average of 38
seconds.XXIV
Slow response times not only lead to page abandonment, but
slow web pages have also been shown to be perceived as
having lower credibility,XXV and quality.XXVI
When page load-times are ‘tolerable’, users are less frustrated,
which leads to higher conversion rates.XXVII Wait time is, of course,
also dependent on the contents – personalised or not. People
will wait slightly longer for information that they believe is
personalised for them.

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If you are looking to build trust and engagement with your
customers, do not ignore the psychology of your digital
marketing.

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Impact of Infrastructure
So far this report has discussed how website design, coding and
management can speed delivery. Another area that affects
speed is the infrastructure that delivers your website and pages
to your end customers.
Infrastructure for ‘content delivery’ involve:
• Hosting environments
• The middle mile
• The last mile
• Acceleration tools
• Content delivery networks
Hosting
The first important choice is the hosting environment. Choosing
the wrong ISP or data centre can impact on your availability
and deliverability. With the advent of cloud storage, your
content can now be placed ‘closer’ to the end user.
The diagram below shows the traffic flow of data across first,
middle and last mile, via numerous networks. Whilst this can be
efficient at times of low traffic, it is also clear that there are
plenty of opportunities for congestion and latency.
!!!"#$%&#$'()"*+%,
Impact of Infrastructure
So far this report has discussed how website design, coding and
management can speed delivery. Another area that affects
speed is the infrastructure that delivers your website and pages
to your end customers.
Infrastructure for ‘content delivery’ involve:
• Hosting environments
• The middle mile
• The last mile
• Acceleration tools
• Content delivery networks
Hosting
The first important choice is the hosting environment. Choosing
the wrong ISP or data centre can impact on your availability
and deliverability. With the advent of cloud storage, your
content can now be placed ‘closer’ to the end user.
The diagram below shows the traffic flow of data across first,
middle and last mile, via numerous networks. Whilst this can be
efficient at times of low traffic, it is also clear that there are
plenty of opportunities for congestion and latency.
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For networks, such as Limelight’s private IP, the traffic has a less
congested ‘middle mile’, reducing the number of requests and
improving the speed of delivery and increasing customer
satisfaction. This method also prevents loss of service through
failure or attack on a single server within the infrastructure.
Middle Mile
The ‘middle mile’ is the segment of a telecommunications
network linking a network operator's core network to the local
network plant.XXVIII Middle mile facilities can range from a few
miles to a few hundred miles. They are often constructed of fibre
optic lines, but microwave and satellite links can be used as
well.XXIX It is shown in the diagram, previous page, as the ‘cloud’.
The middle mile is something most content delivery networks
(CDN) can control, unless they use the public network. Networks
using the public, as opposed private IP networks in this middle
mile could suffer from ‘seasonal fluctuations’, or where two
network companies don’t rate traffic efficiently.
Last Mile
The ‘last mile’ is a term for the final leg of delivering connectivity
from a communications provider to a customer – it is not an
absolute measurement of distance! It is the connection the end
user has to the ‘Internet’ network (or middle mile infrastructure) –
normally through the local telephone exchange. Many
measurements are limited to measuring the network speeds, and
do not reflect the last mile impact of connectivity.
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For networks, such as Limelight’s private IP, the traffic has a less
congested ‘middle mile’, reducing the number of requests and
improving the speed of delivery and increasing customer
satisfaction. This method also prevents loss of service through
failure or attack on a single server within the infrastructure.
Middle Mile
The ‘middle mile’ is the segment of a telecommunications
network linking a network operator's core network to the local
network plant.XXVIII Middle mile facilities can range from a few
miles to a few hundred miles. They are often constructed of fibre
optic lines, but microwave and satellite links can be used as
well.XXIX It is shown in the diagram, previous page, as the ‘cloud’.
The middle mile is something most content delivery networks
(CDN) can control, unless they use the public network. Networks
using the public, as opposed private IP networks in this middle
mile could suffer from ‘seasonal fluctuations’, or where two
network companies don’t rate traffic efficiently.
Last Mile
The ‘last mile’ is a term for the final leg of delivering connectivity
from a communications provider to a customer – it is not an
absolute measurement of distance! It is the connection the end
user has to the ‘Internet’ network (or middle mile infrastructure) –
normally through the local telephone exchange. Many
measurements are limited to measuring the network speeds, and
do not reflect the last mile impact of connectivity.
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www.limelight.com

Acceleration Tools
There are also web content acceleration tools – they come in
two broad varieties:
• Network acceleration – this improves the long-haul non-
cached content
• Presentation layer acceleration – FEA technology to
improve the server to browser communication.
Content Delivery Networks
A CDN can increase the speed of page downloads by providing
more efficient content delivery.
The fact that research shows CDN-powered site to be slower
could be caused by the fact that sites using CDN’s contain more
content than lower ranked sites. The latter may not use CDN’s
because their pages are more lightweight, with fewer objects,
images, etc.
CDN’s provide methods to optimise content delivery, and cover
three broad areas:
- Reducing Page Requests - By limiting the number of ‘Get’
requests for a particular page, delivery is improved. This can be
in terms of streamlining the request processes that a webpage
needn’t fetch scripts sequentially, but including the script
correctly in the page code.
This is called ‘inlining’ and can be an automated function within
FEA solutions. Other techniques that may help include:
• Selective image combining
• Just-in-time image loading, for example when scrolled or
resized
• Small image imbedding
• Small JavaScript file embedding
• HTML 5 persistent cache using localStorage to create a
dedicated cache
• HTML 5 adaptive cache – a scriptable cache to
consolidate page resources

www.limelight.com

- Accelerated Page Rendering – A part of the front-end or
presentation layer acceleration (or optimisation) process is
deciding on the loading priority of the different elements of the
page. Browsers will, by default, download page resources
indiscriminately. By ordering this, the FEA improves the time to the
point where the page is visibly loaded in an end-user browser.
What is your content prioritisation in the display of the HTML
page? FEA solutions often have the ability to postpone the
rendering time of certain page elements, including promoting
certain elements from third party sites. In addition to analysing
the order in which objects load, acceleration solutions may also
utilise the following techniques to accelerate page rendering:
• Domain sharding: serves resources across multiple domains
to increase simultaneous connections
• Image prefetching: pulling important images before they
are requested by the end user browser
• Response prediction: helps to speed rendering by
anticipating the HEAD section of the HTML before the
server has dynamically generated the page
• Asynchronous JavaScript Execution: processes scripts
without blocking other page resources.
• Asynchronous CSS: unblocks the CSS from holding up the
loading of other page objects.
• Lazy load: postponing images below the browser fold from
loading until the user scrolls down.
- Reducing Page Sizes - From 2003 to 2011 the average web
page grew from 93.7K to over 679K, equating to a 7-fold
increase. During the same eight-year period, the number of
objects in the average web page more than tripled, going from
25.7 to 85 objects per page.
Longer term statistics show that since 1995 the size of the
average web page has increased by 48 times, and the number
of objects per page has grown by nearly 37 times.XXX

www.limelight.com

The Unique Limelight Web
Acceleration Solution
Limelight Accelerate combines both Dynamic Site Acceleration
functionality for improving non-cacheable, dynamic websites
with network acceleration and advanced cache control
functionality.
For maximum content offload, the Front-End Acceleration
capability addresses presentation layer optimisation to
dynamically apply best practices to the HTML pages in a
seamless fashion.
The Limelight CDN offers customers access to a private IP
network – one of the largest in the world, with Points of Presence
(POP) strategically placed around the globe. This provides an
unencumbered path back to the customer’s origin in support of
dynamic content retrieval.
The CDN provides not only storage capacity at the network
edge, but also processing power. Combined, the CDN and
Front-End Acceleration offer a powerful combination to deliver
content in the fastest manner possible to your end users by
caching common reference objects and optimising non-
cacheable content back to the origin. Unlike other CDN-only
solutions, FEA picks up where CDN’s leave off the server to
browser communication to improve the end user’s perceived
webpage load time.
The scalable, elastic cloud-based service expands on traditional
notions of content delivery, building on content caching’s
crucial role to deliver even bigger acceleration gains at the end
of the delivery chain — the web browser. It’s a proven approach
that has helped Limelight’s clients increase engagement,
reduce abandonment, and extend their web experiences to
mobile devices.

www.limelight.com

Don’t keep your online visitors waiting.
Limelight acceleration technology can also make decisions
based on the browser that’s requesting content. Since different
browsers handle HTML rendering differently, the instructions
delivered to a Chrome browser, for example, should be different
from those delivered to an Internet Explorer window.
The type of browser also matters. Mobile browsers have to factor
in the constraints of available screen real estate, hardware
processing power, and bandwidth connectivity. Limelight
Acceleration Services have the power to consider all these
variables — optimising for every user and every device in real
time.
The Limelight suite of content delivery solutions allows seamless
integration of the FEA and CDN, along with the Limelight Video
Platform and Dynamic Site Platform. APIs allow easy integration
into a wide variety of other platforms and corporate systems,
giving you maximum flexibility in your digital marketing
execution.
www.limelight.com
Don’t keep your online visitors waiting. With Limelight Accelerate, they can take immediate action on your
site—while the same page has barely started to load without Limelight Accelerate.
Limelight acceleration technology can also make decisions based on the browser that’s
requesting content. Since different browsers handle HTML rendering differently, the
instructions delivered to a Chrome browser, for example, should be different from those
delivered to an Internet Explorer window. The type of browser also matters. Mobile
browsers have to factor in the constraints of available screen real estate, hardware
processing power, and bandwidth connectivity. Limelight Acceleration Services have the
power to consider all these variables—optimizing for every user and every device
Limelight Accelerate provides key differentiators that allow both your regular and mobile
users to experience faster web performance:
Optimizes dynamic content all the time, every time, while other solutions must learn
over time. This is not good for optimizing dynamic content.
No plugins at the origin server or browser
No changes to any HTML code
Integrated into a powerful and robust cloud platform
Limelight owns the optimization code and is not dependent on third party developer
resources
Conclusion
As websites continue to become more complex—with more and more objects, images,
and scripts—the greatest opportunity for web acceleration lies with the browser. The
challenge for an IT or web administrator is to consistently optimize their site for every
browser variation. Automated web acceleration solutions can give you the performance
you need—allowing you to deliver content at warp speed, across every device.
To find out how Limelight acceleration solutions can help you increase your web
page rendering performance:

www.limelight.com

The Limelight Video Platform (LVP) is a simple video publishing
tool on the surface, that provides a depth of sophisticated
metadata management, seamless integration with your existing
CMS, real-time analytics, in-video search, and full support for
multiple publishing models including free, subscription, and ad-
supported video.
LVP is used by many of the world’s largest broadcasters –
traditional and digital, to deliver store, manage and deliver their
audio-visual materials.
The Limelight Dynamic Site Platform (DSP) combines web
content management; site marketing and personalisation tools,
mobile publishing, and an express solution to help an
organisation be sophisticated web publishers and marketers. It
benefits from a simplified interface and powerful workflow tools,
you can quickly push a wide range of content to your website -
or launch new websites quickly using existing assets.
The private, global fibre-optic IP network adds to your delivery
success and security. Limelight is a cloud-based SaaS provider,
and as such you are always on the best version of the platform,
future-proofing your investment and able to support your
planned seasonal events and short-notice campaigns.
Limelight Accelerate provides key differentiators that allow both
your regular and mobile users to experience faster web
performance:
• Optimises dynamic content all the time, every time, while
other solutions must learn over time, because many
websites are very dynamic, competitive solutions that
never approach their optimised state. This is not good for
optimising dynamic content.
• No plug-ins at the origin server or browser
• No changes to any HTML code at their origin
• Integrated into a powerful and robust cloud platform
• Limelight owns the optimisation code and is not
dependent on third party developer resources

www.limelight.com

Glossary
Abandonment The rate at which visitors abandon the
web page, shopping cart, or action.
Bounce rate The rate at which a visitor ‘bounce off’
a web page without viewing any
further pages.
Broadband In this sense, a technical term for ‘fast’
Internet connectivity – the opposite of
‘Narrow-band’ or ‘Dial-up’ connect-
ivity.
Browser The interface used by the visitor to
view web pages – be it on a
computer, tablet or mobile device.
Cache A high-speed storage buffer, generally
within the central processing unit of a
computer, or in commercial storage,
within the servers.
Cascading Style Sheets Cascading style sheets (CSS) are used
to format the layout of Web pages.
They can be used to define text styles,
table sizes, and other aspects of Web
pages that previously could only be
defined in a page's HTML.XXXI
CDN see Content Delivery Network (abbr.)
Chrome The Google branded Internet browser.
Cloud Computing Cloud computing is a general term for
anything that involves delivering
hosted services over the Internet.
These services are broadly divided into
three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-
Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service
(PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS). The name cloud computing
was inspired by the cloud symbol that's
often used to represent the Internet in
flowcharts and diagrams.XXXII

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Content Delivery Network A content delivery network (CDN) is an
interconnected system of computers
on the Internet that provides Web
content rapidly to numerous users by
duplicating the content on multiple
server s and directing the content to
users based on proximity. CDNs are
used by Internet service providers
(ISPs) to deliver static or dynamic Web
pages but the technology is especially
well suited to streaming audio, video,
and Internet television (IPTV)
programming.XXXIII
CSS see Cascading Style Sheets (abbr.)
Customer conversion The customer conversion rate is
probably the most important number
you should know about your website.
You can calculate this number by
taking the number of people who
actually buy something from your site,
and then divide by the total number
of unique visitors to your site.XXXIV
FEA see Front End Acceleration (abbr.)
Firefox The Mozilla branded Internet browser.
Front End Acceleration A specific deployment of a proxy
server that optimises web pages by
applying heuristics to improve the
server to browser communications.
GB Gigabyte – measurement of digital
data. One gigabyte is equivalent to
1,073,741,824 bytes. (abbr.)
Graphic User Interface A graphical user interface (GUI) is a
human-computer interface (i.e., a way
for humans to interact with computers)
that uses windows, icons and menus
and that can be manipulated by a
mouse (and often to a limited extent
by a keyboard as well).XXXV
GUI see Graphic User Interface (abbr.)
HTML HyperText Markup Language – the
programming language of the Internet
(abbr.).

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HTML 5 The latest version of HTML. HTML5 is
designed to provide a comprehensive
application development platform for
Web pages that eliminates the need
to install third-party browser plug-ins
such as Java and Flash. It provides
support for 2D graphics, document
editing, drag and drop, browser history
management, video playback and
local file storage.
HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol - the
underlying protocol used by the World
Wide Web. HTTP defines how
messages are formatted and trans-
mitted, and what actions Web servers
and browsers should take in response
to various commands (abbr.).
IE see Internet Explorer (abbr.).
Internet Explorer The Microsoft branded Internet
browser, the latest is version Internet
Explorer 9 (IE9).
Internet Service Provider The means by which Internet users can
access the World Wide Web. An ISP
has the equipment and the telecom-
munication line access required to
have a point-of-presence on the
Internet for the geographic area
served. The larger ISPs have their own
high-speed leased lines so that they
are less dependent on the tele-
communication providers and can
provide better service to their
customers.
IP Network Internet Protocol Network - IP has
become the global standard for
networking, which includes the entire
Internet, private LANs and many of the
data and voice networks of the
carriers.
ISP see Internet Service Provider (abbr.).
JavaScript A coding language that can interact
with HTML source code, enabling Web
authors to spice up their sites with
dynamic content.

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KB Kilobyte – measurement of digital
data. One kilobyte is equivalent to
1,024 bytes (abbr.).
Landing page A landing page is the first page a
visitor ‘lands’ on went accessing the
website. This can be a generic page,
or a specific page for a campaign or
event.
Last Mile The last mile is the notional distance
between the user’s device (computer
or mobile device) and the ‘network’.
Traditionally this has been the link
between the user and the local tele-
phone exchange or mobile cell
transmitter.
MB Megabyte – measurement of digital
data. One megabyte is equivalent to
1,048,576 bytes (abbr.).
Middle Mile The "middle mile" is the segment of a
telecommunications network, which
connects a network operator's core
network to the local network plant.
Middle mile facilities provide relatively
fast, large-capacity connections
between the network backbone (or
backhaul) and last mile connection.XIX
ms Milliseconds - one thousandth of a
second (abbr.).
Narrowband Generally, narrowband describes
telecommunication that carries voice
information in a narrow band of
frequencies. Recently it is used to
describe slow Internet connections via
a dial-up modem.
Page 'weight' The ‘weight’ is the page file size. The
heavier the weight, the larger the size
and therefore the more the visitor must
download/transfer.
Page views The number pages the visitor has
accessed (and assumed to have
viewed.

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Plug-in A plug-in is an add-on typically for a
software programme that adds
functionality to it. For example, a
browser plug-in allows you to play
certain multimedia files within your
Web browser.
Point of Presence On the Internet, a Point of Presence
(POP) is an access point from one
place to the rest of the Internet. A POP
necessarily has a unique Internet
Protocol (IP) address.XXXVI
POP see Point of Presence (abbr.).
SaaS see Software-as-a-Service (abbr.).
Search Engine Optimisation The art of optimising a website to
appear high in the search engine
rankings – abbreviated as SEO.
SEO see Search Engine Optimisation
(abbr.).
Software-as-a-Service This is a software distribution model in
which applications are hosted by a
vendor or service provider and made
available to customers over a network,
typically the Internet. It is popular as
the software is constantly updated,
and reduces the capital expenditure
of a business.
Style Sheet see Cascading Style Sheets.
WAP see Wireless Application Protocol
(abbr.).
Web 2.0 Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a
second generation of the World Wide
Web that is focused on the ability for
people to collaborate and share
information online. Web 2.0 basically
refers to the transition from static HTML
Web pages to a more dynamic Web
that is more organised and is based on
serving Web applications to users.XXXVII

www.limelight.com

Web servers This is a computer that runs a website.
Using the HTTP protocol, the web
server delivers web pages to browsers
as well as other data files to web-
based applications. The web server
includes the hardware, operating
system, web server software, TCP/IP
protocols and site content (Web
pages, images and other files).XXXVIII
Wireless Application Protocol This is a specification for a set of
communication protocols to
standardise the way that wireless
devices, such as cellular telephones
and radio transceivers, can be used
for Internet access, including e-mail,
the World Wide Web, newsgroups,
and instant messaging.XXXIX
© 2012 Limelight Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Limelight Networks is a registered trademark of Limelight Networks,
Inc. Other products and company names may be trademarks of their respective companies. All services are subject to
change or discontinuance without notice. January 2012
Key Takeaways
1. Web content speed is a key metric for business
success
2. Improving the webpage download experience
leads to better engagement, customer
satisfaction and higher revenues
3. Multi-platform delivery complicates the
workflow but increases reach (to smartphones,
tablets and PC’s) and engagement
4. Use of end-to-end content delivery systems
improves performance

www.limelight.com

Sources
I E-Commerce Page Speed & Website Performance – Strangeloop Networks 2012
II Jackson, W. www.williejackson.com
III Linden, 2006
IV Farber, 2006
V Kohavi & Longbotham, 2007
VI Aberdeen Group – The performance of Web Applications: Customers are won or lost
in one second, November 2008
VII Jackson, W. www.williejackson.com
VIII Nielsen, J. useit.com Alertbox June 21, 2010
IX Ecommerce Page Speed Survey – TagMan (www.tagman.com) July 18, 2011
X Beheshti, H – Strangeloop, July 1, 2010
XI E-Commerce Page Speed & Website Performance – Strangeloop Networks 2012
XII Customers are Won or Lost in One Second – Simic, B – Aberdeen Group, November
2008
XIII Kohavi, R & Longbotham, R – Online Experiments: Lessons Learned. September 2007
XIV Strangeloop Networks website blog - 2012
XV Alexa.com analysis of website load speeds
XVI NVT, 2008
XVII Nextslt.org
XVIII Internetnews, 1993
XIX Gartner, 2003
XX http://www.istockanalyist.com/finance/story/5654129/tablet-pc-growth-a-death-
knell-for-desktop-pc
XXI from WebPerformanceToday.com
XXII How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line – Inforgraphic from KISSmetrics.com.
XXIII JupiterResearch presented by Akamai, 2006
XXIV Nah, F – A Study On Tolerable Waiting Time: How Long Are Web Users Willing To
Wait?, 2004. From Web Optimization – 30 May 2008
XXV Fogg, B.J., et al. – What Makes Websites Credible? A Report On A Large
Quantitative Study. From Web Optimization – 30 May 2008
XXVI Bouch, A.,Kuchinskey, A., and Bhatti, N – Quality s in the Eye of the Beholder:
Meeting Users’ Requirements for Internet Quality. From Web Optimization – 30 May
2008
XXVII Akamai – Boosting Online Commerce Profitability…” 2007
XXVIII Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_mile
XXIX About.com Broadband - http://broadband.about.com/od/glossary/g/Middle-
Mile.htm
XXX http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/
XXXI http://www.techterms.com
XXXII http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com
XXXIII http://whatis.techtarget.com
XXXIV http://www.thesitedoctor.com
XXXV http://www.linfo.org
XXXVI http://searchtelecom.techtarget.com
XXXVII http://www.webopedia.com
XXXVIII http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term
XXXIX http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com

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