gzip and affiliate links

[dunx69]

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I am trying to reduce the size of my site to help my google results but Im not sure about this gzip compression stuff - sorry bit of a newbie to gzip

will using the tecniques here: http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-optimize-your-site-with-gzip-compression/ affect how my affiliates track?

is this something I have just missed and should have on my website anyway?

[dc000000]

No - don't bother it won't help you. If your site is noticeably slow (not just because goole says it is) just try and reduce the number of external scripts you have on the page.

[dunx69]

i have statcounter, anylitics addthis and the whitelabel affiliatefuture holiday search box, think i should drop statcounter?

[dc000000]

you could try it and see if it makes much difference - if it's not noticeable then I wouldn't worry too much - I think virtually every site on the planet fails the google website optimizer tool?

[dunx69]

its just annoying, I have lowered my image sizes to as far as i can but it hasnt dropped. will trying dumping statcounter but i like its ease of use for visitor numbers that i can quickly look at - google anylitics depresses me lol

[dc000000]

yeah, I know what you mean
The speed of your site isn't going to affect it's ranking. Matt Cutts has said it's something they may consider doing eventually but even then it is going to be a very minor issue.

[dunx69]

cheers for helping me out i thought it would majorly affetcing but if not i will just carry on working with more content.

[dc000000]

here's what he said
YouTube - Is speed more important than relevance?

[mcol]

I can't believe people are saying this!

Compression can make a huge difference to speed - and the slower a site responds, the more visitors are likely to quit.

And even if it only counts for 0.001% in the Google algorithm, why would you throw that advantage away.

[dc000000]

Because it doesn't make any ranking difference and the time can be better spent on stuff that does.
The guy asked the question because he didn't undrstand what it was all about - I don't think it's helpful to encourage people to get worried about very complex matters that ultimately make no or, at best, minimal difference?

[paraleadogg]

Speed does make a difference - maybe not in serps but definitely in user perception and conversion rates etc.

Things that can help are to merge multiple javascript files into one (if possible) and move them to the foot of the page (above the closing </body> tag). This way they are loaded last.

Avoid inline styles and use one external style sheet rather than loading multiple style sheets. External style sheets are good as they can be cached to help speed up page loads.

Where possible use sprites. A sprite is a single image that replaces multiple images and therefore reduced requests to the server. For example a button. Instead of loading two images (one for the button and one for the hover state of the button) we could load ONE image instead containing BOTH images. When we hover we use CSS to move the correct image into view.

Always specify image height and widths - that way the browser can render the page before relying on the images to download (as it knows how everything should be laid out)

Try to keep images less than 100kb

Try and minimize white space. Even thought it is 'space' it still has to be stored. Use a program to 'minify' js files - but remember to keep a 'normal' one for yourself to edit.

Avoid tables and nested tables - try and stick to divs

There are of course plenty more things that can be done but these should set you off in the right direction

Good luck