For those of you interested in our new DéjàClick Test On Demand tool, we recorded a brief demo to show you exactly how it works. Watch the video below to see just how fast and easy it is to use, and how much insight will be revealed with just a few clicks.
New DéjàClick feature enables instant Web performance testing from global locations
The global nature of conducting business online necessitates that you have a deep understanding of how your website performs for users in all of your target markets. If you’re not regularly testing the performance of your website outside your physical location or headquarters, users in other regions across the globe could be having a negative Web experience, and you’d never know it.
That is, unless they complained about it.
But do you really want to have to rely on customer dissatisfaction and complaints before you can improve service? Wouldn’t you rather be proactive?
Today, we released a new tool to help you do just that. DéjàClick Test On Demand is our new free service that provides immediate insight into the responsiveness and availability of your websites and applications from dozens of locations across the globe.
It’s easy. Simply use DéjàClick to record any multi-step Web transaction, click the Test On Demand icon, and select your desired location from the drop-down menu. (There are over 60 locations for AlertSite customers to choose from. Or, as a member of the DéjàClick community, you can select either Chicago or London.)
Then, click play to watch your recording play back like a movie. As you do, observe the performance metrics that are revealed at each step of the transaction.
You’ll see:
- Action details for each page of the transaction, including HTTP status; response times for DNS lookup, connect, redirect, time to first byte, HTML content and full page content; and waterfall charts.
- Event details that show the performance of every mouse-over, form fill-in, navigation and click, so users can make sure all the interactive and Flash components of their websites are performing as they should.
- Screen captures of errors that appear instantaneously to show users what the page looked like when something went wrong and at what step of the transaction.
By the end of the play back, you’ll have a deep and comprehensive understanding of how that transaction performs for users in your selected location.
Don’t take our word for it, though. Try it yourself. DéjàClick is available as a free download to Firefox users. Run some tests using the Test On Demand tool, and let us know what you think!
ReadingGlasses.com improves vision of website performance with AlertSite DéjàClick
ReadingGlasses.com, the world’s largest online reading glasses store, offers customers hundreds of designer options to improve their eyesight. We’re proud to say that when the company needed to improve its own vision and ensure it was delivering a reliable and valuable Web experience to users, it turned to AlertSite for our one-of-a-kind Web performance monitoring solutions.
For over a year now, ReadingGlasses.com has been using DéjàClick to record and test customer click streams so that customers could browse products, add items to their shopping carts, and check out without a hitch. For Jason Kyle, the company’s e-commerce director, one of the solution’s most valuable features is the instant error notifications. Every time an error occurs on his site, or response times fall below predetermined thresholds, Kyle receives an instant phone alert, enabling him to quickly address the issue. As a result, ReadingGlasses.com has been able to avoid nearly all outages or major slow-downs.
In the full-length case study, which is now available, Kyle describes one particular instance in which real-time notifications alerted him to a situation on his website that could have had devastating results. Thanks to the alert, Kyle discovered the problem and took action to address it before it could further cripple his site or lead to customer complaints and potential lost revenue.
For the full story, click on the case study below. Also, visit our InfoCenter to find mores stories of how leading Web companies improved their Web performance with AlertSite.
AlertSite recognized as a top provider of Web performance monitoring to Internet Retailer 500
We’re proud to announce that, for the third year in a row, AlertSite has been cited as one of the top three providers of Web performance monitoring solutions to the Internet Retailer Top 500! The listing came out in this month’s issue of Internet Retailer.
Thanks to Sierra Trading Post, Shoebuy.com, Crutchfield, and all the other retailers who listed us as their Web performance monitoring provider of choice!
Huge response to national Gap promo overwhelms Groupon
No matter how often you test the performance of your site, we all know that sometimes, outages or other errors are inevitable. That said, we’re always on the lookout for unique, innovative or informative error messages.
Here’s one we came across today, implemented by the “deal of the day” company, Groupon. Groupon launched its first nationwide deal today, $25 for $50 worth of merchandise at Gap, and was quickly overwhelmed by the response. TechCrunch reported that “as of 11 a.m. PST (the e-mail blast went out at roughly 6 a.m. in each time zone), Groupon has sold 200,000 Groupons and is currently selling roughly 10 per second.”
The result has been inconsistent availability and shaky performance. But kudos to Groupon for keeping their customers informed. And for offering to contact them when the site was back up and running.
Here’s the message we got when we tried to visit the site this morning.
As these type of sites gain popularity, providers will need to take extra steps to ensure their websites can hold up to the big deals of the day.
Free webinar: Online performance is business performance
The consequences of a poorly performing website are no longer speculation. It’s been reported time and again that slow or unresponsive sites can negatively impact customer satisfaction and brand reputation, and result in missed revenue opportunities.
But don’t take our word for it. Join us in two weeks, on Aug. 17, for a live discussion with Bojan Simic, Founder and Principal Analyst at TRAC Research, a B2B market research and analyst company that specializes in IT performance management. Bojan will share some of the most recent research on Web performance metrics and highlight new trends in website performance management.
Plus, we’ll also have Steve Lubahn, General Manager of Supreme School Supply on the line. We first introduced you to Steve earlier this summer following our trip to IRCE in Chicago. He’ll be sharing some of the specific benefits his company has experienced since implementing Web performance monitoring solutions.
If you’re interested in learning more about the latest trends in Web performance monitoring and how it can improve your business, be sure to register today. We’re offering two chances to participate: 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. EST. Hope to see you there!
Web performance of financial institutions increases in Q2
According to comScore, since 2006 the number of customers visiting the top 10 online banking sites increased from 40 million to more than 58 million people. comScore also reports that in any given quarter, nearly 60 percent of the total U.S. Internet population visits the website of at least one of the top 20 financial institutions.
And the popularity of online banking continues to grow. comScore’s 2010 State of Online Banking Report found that 64 percent of Americans now pay bills online, up 19 percentage points over 2009.
For those customers entrusting the management of their finances to the Web, and for the banks that want to maintain these customer relationships, performance is paramount.
Remember last fall when TD Bank experienced complications integrating the computer systems and websites of the old TD Banknorth and Commerce Bank? A glitch in the system prevented deposits and withdrawals from being posted to customers’ accounts. Customers couldn’t see their current balances and began to fear their bank was going out of business.
The slightest abnormality or delay in a bank’s website performance could put consumers on edge. Availability and quick response times are a must for instilling confidence and creating happy customers.
So how did the websites of some of the industry’s top financial institutions measure up last quarter? AlertSite’s Q2 Web Performance Index for Financial Services shows they performed particularly well. Seven of the sites being monitored delivered consistent or improved availability over the first quarter, and nine improved response times. (SunTrust Bank improved response time by over 56 percent!)
Two sites – Fifth Third Bank and BB&T Corp. — experienced no outages and were available 100 percent of the second quarter. Five banks gave their customers near-instant access to their sites, delivering response times under two seconds.
The graphs below reveal the average response times, availability, and quarterly improvement each site experienced in Q2.
Facebook is fastest social network in Q2; Twitter drops to last
How many times a day do you update your Twitter status, upload a photo to Facebook, or connect with a new contact on LinkedIn?
According to Forrester, 59 percent of all U.S. Internet users now use social networks, and 70 percent consume content on social media and social networking sites. And Nielsen data indicates that people are spending nearly five-and-a-half hours per month on social networking sites.
Overnight these tools have become our lifeline to the world, delivering real-time updates on news and events and connecting us with former classmates, colleagues, celebrities, and total strangers. As more people come to rely on social networking websites, performance can suffer.
Today, we’re releasing the Q2 Web Performance Index for Social Networks. For the past 90 days, we monitored the availability and response times of Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, MySpace, and Twitter. Which performed the best?
MySpace bounced back from a terrible first quarter and improved its availability by over 13 percent. The result was a nearly impeccable 99.98 percent availability. Only four errors were recorded in 20,450 attempts to access the site during the three-month period, sending the network straight to the top of the leaderboard.
Based on response times, Facebook (which, any day now will reach the 500 million user mark) takes top honors for the second consecutive quarter. On average, users had to wait only 1.02 seconds for the site to load. LinkedIn came in a close second, with an average response time of 1.28 seconds. Both times represented improvements over the first quarter.
Twitter found itself on the bottom of both lists, delivering the longest average response time and the lowest availability throughout the quarter. Performance dropped significantly compared to Q1. The time it took the website to load nearly doubled, and availability slipped nearly half a percent.
During Q2 we witnessed a worldwide Internet event — the World Cup — which began on June 11 and carried through into the current month. In preparation for the event, Twitter created a special section on its site to highlight the key matches, promote special hash tags to show team allegiance, and offer special new backgrounds to decorate profiles with. However, the site was ill-equipped for the volume of traffic it would receive.
The World Cup was responsible for the site’s largest period of sustained activity in its history. During the final 15 minutes of the championship game, there were more than 2,000 tweets per second, and 3,051 tweets per second when Spain scored the winning goal.
The result of this high traffic was outages and a lot of fail whale sightings.
Twitter’s experience demonstrates the effect worldwide events such as the World Cup can have on a website, particularly when it has not prepared in advance. As demand for real-time information increases, consumer expectations for the time it should take a website to load follow suit. The performance of social sites must scale to meet these demands.
Internet Retailer Top 50 improve website performance in Q2
Each quarter we monitor and rank the performance — defined by percent availability and response times — of Internet Retailer’s Top 50 Retailers. Today, we’re proud to announce the top performing retailers from our Q2 Web Performance Index for Retail.
Based on websites’ uptime and average response times during the three-month period beginning April 1 and ending June 30, the three retailers with the overall best website performance were:
- Avon, which delivered 99.99 percent uptime and an average response time of 1.57 seconds.
- QVC, with 99.97 percent availability and an average response time of 2.03 seconds.
- Cabela’s, with with 99.96 percent uptime and an average response time of 1.88 seconds.
In addition to being the overall best performing site, Avon was also the fastest retail site in Q2. Its average response time of 1.57 seconds was the fastest average response time among the Top 50 Retailers. L.L. Bean, with an average 1.60-second load time, and Peapod, with 1.75-second load times, came in second and third.
In terms of availability, one site – Williams-Sonoma — experienced no downtime at all, delivering 100 percent availability (a 33 percent improvement over Q1) to its customers throughout the spring and early summer. Close on its heels were Amazon and Avon, with 99.99 percent availability each.
We also performed a quarter-over-quarter comparison to determine which sites had improved their performance over the first quarter of 2010, and the results were overwhelmingly positive. Nearly all of the companies being monitored (43) improved the response times of their homepages, and 31 of them improved both their overall response times and percent availability.
The most dramatic improvements in response times were:
- Blockbuster, which improved response times 66.77 percent, from 9.60 seconds to 3.19 seconds.
- Musician’s Friend, which improved response times 58.81 percent, from 5.73 seconds to 2.36 seconds.
- Cabela’s, which improved response times 46.59 percent, from 3.52 seconds to 1.88 seconds.
The websites that improved availability over Q1 were:
- L.L. Bean, which increased uptime 3.86 percent, for a total 99.34 percent availability.
- The Home Depot, which increased uptime 3.72 percent, for a total 99.19 percent availability.
- Sony Style, which increased uptime 2.14 percent, for a total 99.92 percent availability.
We’re encouraged by the improvements so many of these retailers have demonstrated throughout the first half of 2010. The impact a quick, reliable site can have on business is becoming hard to ignore, and downtime is becoming more and more inexcusable.
Retailers have two very important shopping seasons upon them, back-to-school and the holidays — perhaps the ultimate test of a retailers’ Web performance savvy. For the sites on the bottom of these performance rankings, now is the time to act. Review your site’s performance, analyze its components, determine its limitations, and make the necessary adjustments. You don’t want to be caught with your store closed when the holiday crowds come charging.
CBSSports.com is the top performing website of the 2010 World Cup
It’s been four weeks of intense games and even more intense website traffic. Just over a month ago, the World Cup began, and people rushed to the Internet for what is possibly the Net’s biggest sporting event. Early estimations of website traffic by Akamai showed nearly 12.1 million visitors per minute from across the globe. By June 24, traffic exceeded 20 million visitors per minute. It was truly a worldwide Internet spectacle.
In case you’ve missed any of our weekly recaps, AlertSite has been monitoring 11 World Cup websites over the past four weeks to track performance, response times and availability.
Spain claimed the title for World Cup winner on Sunday, and now we are ready to announce our website winner for the best World Cup performance and availability.
Drum roll please, or in this case, cue the vuvuzelas…
The winner is … CBSSports.com. Over the last four weeks, this website had the lowest average response time–3.96 seconds– and delivered 99.93 percent availability.
Second place goes to ESPN360.com, with an average response time of 4.39 seconds and 99.83 percent availability.
And our third place recognition goes to ESPN.com which had a response time average of 5.04 seconds and 99.83 percent availability.
Here’s the full breakdown of how all the sites ranked for availability and response times.
Noteworthy observations:
Fanhouse.com saw a rather consistent increase in their response times as the World Cup progressed indicating that as more people hit the site, it started to feel the strain.
YahooSports.com had the most trending and inconsistent performance throughout the tournament. You can see all the peaks and valleys of their performance graph.
FIFA.com showed the most consistent response times across all of AlertSite’s monitoring locations.
The World Cup brought a record amount of traffic to websites. Some were able to handle it better than others.
These worldwide events show how important it is for websites to test and prepare so they can maintain uptime and provide reliable service to their customers. Website performance DOES matter!
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