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monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/fe5ce_5125849675_cc7922ff6c_o.jpg” title=”Goo.gl versus other URL shorteners” class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”127″ />

A few weeks ago, google made its URL shortener, Goo.gl, open for everyone and gave it its own website, similar to Bit.ly’s. Previously, Goo.gl could only be used by google’s own services.

When they announced this, google made googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-url-shortener-gets-website.html”>a pretty bold statement: “… we do want it to be the stablest, most secure, and fastest URL shortener on the web.”

That’s something that we should test, isn’t it?

So, for a couple of weeks after Goo.gl became open, we monitored its performance and reliability together with several other URL shortening services, including Bit.ly and TinyURL. We used, of course, our own monitoring service (i.e. Pingdom).

Testing what matters

We were primarily concerned with the reliability and performance of shortened URLs. How much overhead do the different URL shorteners add, and do they always work? What you are ultimately comparing is the time it takes to go to a site directly versus the time it takes to go to that site via a URL shortener.

Note that we only included “open” URL shorteners like Bit.ly and Goo.gl that let you create your own short URLs (just visit their site, enter a long URL, and get a short one back). There are lots of application-specific URL shorteners like monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/04/twitter-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>twitter’s t.co, wordpress.com’s wp.me, etc, that don’t let you do this. We didn’t include those since we wanted to test comparable services.

Since we used the Pingdom monitoring network, the continuous tests were spread out over 25 locations distributed over North America and Europe. We performed tests every minute for 15 days. For those of you counting, that means that the numbers we’ll show you are the result of 21,600 tests per URL shortener.

Performance overhead

The overhead that an URL shortener adds is that, instead of going directly to a site, you first have to ask the servers of the URL shortening service where to go, and they will redirect you to the actual target site.

As you’ll see, how much overhead this adds can vary a lot not just between different URL shorteners, but also between different geographical regions.

To be perfectly clear, what you see in the chart here below is the extra time a URL shortener adds when accessing a site. We’ve sorted the list so that the fastest total average it at the top, the slowest at the bottom.

monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/09a0d_5126454672_56ea7a3d46_o.png” title=”URL shortener overhead” class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”500″ />

A few observations:

• Since people like to compare Goo.gl specifically with Bit.ly, it turns out that Goo.gl is almost 3x faster than Bit.ly overall, at least during the time period of this test. The really big difference, however, is outside North America, where Goo.gl is more than 4x faster. We attribute this to google simply having more servers in more locations, which of course is to be expected considering how many data centers the company has. In North America the difference is less pronounced, where Goo.gl is 2x faster on average. The difference is less here because it’s where Bit.ly has its servers.
• The only place Goo.gl was beat was in Europe, where Is.gd actually managed to inch just ahead of it in terms of performance. That said, Goo.gl is still 2.5x faster than Is.gd in North America. It’s pretty safe to say that Is.gd has its servers in Europe.
• The most drastic difference in the test was between the European North American results for Goo.gl and Twurl, where the former was more than 9x faster. So there you have a worst-case scenario of how much the performance can differ between two services.

Small note for clarity’s sake: When we say for example “2x faster,” we mean the same thing as “adds half as much overhead.”

Reliability

It doesn’t matter how fast a URL shortener is if it’s broken. That’s why we thought it was relevant to also show the reliability of the included services here.

Note that the “estimated downtime in a year” is based on just 15 days of monitoring, so it really is just an estimate based on the uptime of this limited time period.

• Both Bit.ly and Goo.gl delivered perfect availability, and Is.gd came awfully close.
• The 99.95% uptime shown by TinyURL and Ow.ly is also perfectly acceptable.

Verdict

After seeing these numbers, there can be no doubt that google has indeed managed to create a very speedy URL shortener. It was by far the fastest service in this test.

While important, it should be noted that speed isn’t necessarily everything. Many use URL shorteners for other features or reasons, so this report is by no means saying that Goo.gl is the best URL shortener out there, just that it’s the fastest of the ones we tested. google has delivered on its promise.

Goo.gl will add overhead just like any other URL shortener. It just adds a bit less thanks to google’s ability to rely on its vast, distributed infrastructure.

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Free Online Webinar on November 4, 2010: Holiday Website Optimization Tips.
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monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/c6382_5121135954_8f3baa1bf1_o.jpg” title=”Slow” class=”right” width=”150″ height=”100″ />You probably hate slow websites. So do we, and it’s pretty safe to say that it’s a universal rule.

There are a number of factors that can make a web page slow to load, both on the client side (the browser) and on the server side, but one really big factor is page size, and that’s what we’ll be talking about in this article. Hopefully you’ll pick up some useful information along the way.

In the early days, web pages used to be just a few kilobytes, or a few tens of kilobytes at the most. Since then that has grown to hundreds of kilobytes, and many of today’s web pages can weigh in at more than a megabyte. A couple of years ago we did a study that showed exactly that, and although that specific study was of blogs, we have seen that it applies to websites in general.

In some ways we can afford this increase in page size, because people’s Internet connections have gotten faster. Broadband Internet connections are becoming increasingly common.

For example, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that you, dear reader, is sitting behind an excellent Internet connection.

Don’t assume everyone has fast Internet access

So, why should web designers (or webmasters) worry at all about page size? It’s not an issue anymore, is it?

Wrong.

Even if you exclude people on dial-up, there are still plenty of people around on poor broadband connections. Mobile broadband is also on the rise, and depending on provider and coverage, data transfer rates can drop down into the lower ends of the spectrum. Basic 3G, for example, is only 384 kbit/s.

According to Akamai’s State of the Internet report, 28% of Internet connections in the United States are slower than 2 Mbit/s, and only 30% are 5 Mbit/s or faster. Almost 3% are slower than 256 kbit/s.

That’s in the United States, a country relatively far ahead on the Internet. The worldwide average is worse: 41% of Internet connections are slower than 2 Mbit/s, 22% are 5 Mbit/s or faster, and 4.6% are slower than 256 kbit/s.

monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/d51bc_5120509309_2ab08d67b9_o.png” title=”Bandwidth distribution” class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”170″ />

So, you may be sitting on a super-fast Internet connection yourself, but many of your potential site visitors won’t be. If you don’t keep this in mind while creating your web pages, you may be turning them away without even knowing it.

Download speed vs. page size

So now that we’ve established that a lot of people are still using less-than-stellar Internet connections, how does page size affect download speed? We’ve created a couple of charts to illustrate this for you.

monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/d51bc_5120688680_0f06096c78_o.png” title=”How page size affects download speed” class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”400″ />

As you can see, as page size approaches and passes 1 megabyte, things start to get ugly. Even at 500 kilobyte a page is far from fast for everyone.

You should note that these are download speeds under ideal conditions, i.e. theoretical maxima for these bandwidths. In the real world, it will be a bit slower. For returning visitors, caching may help you out, but don’t count on it. Another killer is that your web page is split up in many objects (images, scripts, CSS files, etc), each retrieved separately, which adds a lot of back and forth communication with the server and slows down proceedings even more. That, incidentally, is why another important performance rule is to keep the number of objects down to a minimum.

So, what if you don’t just consider people on broadband, but also those on dial-up? Then download time degrades much more rapidly. The below chart is exactly the same as the previous one, but with a 56 kbit/s dial-up connection added. You can probably tell which line it is…

monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/04b04_5120084835_8cd5d7e2b7_o.png” title=”How page size affects download speed, now with dial-up” class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”400″ />

You may not want to accommodate today’s minority of dial-up users, but at least now you know how they’ll be affected.

Settling for under 5 seconds

To be frank, you don’t want a website with pages that take 10-15 seconds or more to download. It will frustrate your visitors a lot more than you want. Let’s settle on a more user-friendly download time: 5 seconds. (And even that is generous.)

If you want a web page to be downloaded in under 5 seconds, how big can it be? I.e. how much wriggling room do you have before things start to get really slow?

In 5 seconds…

• 56 kbit/s can download 34 kilobyte.
• 500 kbit/s can download 305 kilobyte.
• 1 Mbit/s can download 610 kilobyte.
• 5 Mbit/s can dowload 2.98 megabyte.
• 10 Mbit/s can download 5.96 megabyte.

And 5 seconds isn’t even considered a fast load time. Preferably a page should load within a couple of seconds at the most, which cuts the margins even more.

Don’t alienate users, think small

Unless you want to alienate a big portion of today’s Internet users, remember to keep track of how large your web pages become when you create them. If you’re unsure, you can always use tools like Firebug, Yslow, and even our own Full Page Test.

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear, page size only becomes a major problem for slower connections. For the faster broadband connections, 5 Mbit/s and up, page size has become almost a non-issue. When you have access to that kind of bandwidth, other factors than page size have a bigger effect on load time, so it’s important to think about that as well. Both google and Yahoo provide performance best practices that you can apply to your site. (google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/rules_intro.html”>Here are google’s. Here are Yahoo’s.)

Just don’t forget about page size. It’s low-hanging fruit on the performance tree.

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Which is the most reliable server hardware and operating system? Well, it turns out that the most reliable piece of hardware out there is the IBM Power 7 system, running AIX, scores at least monitoring.php” target=”_blank”>99.99% server uptime. This translates to 15 minutes of downtime per year. This is quite amazing. Imagine this was your web hosting provider. It is not surprising that IBM are rock solid amongst other alternatives. IBM, or International Business Machines, has nearly 100 years of history behind their backs. Some think that to succeed you need to be the first company on the market, or the best one. It seems that IBM benefits from both.

There is a lot of buzz around green computing and green data centers. We even mentioned those a couple of times. But what does “Green” mean? If environmental friendly computing translates to efficiency and workload optimization, then there you have it. There are two ways to help the environment while meeting the ever increasing demand for faster performance – make your it equipment run on green energy or make it as efficient as possible. In a perfect world you would have both, but in the most common case scenario we are still firmly attached to the power company and making the most out of the electricity you use, can really pay off. While most servers use 10% of their capacity most of the time, the Power7 series utilize up to 90% of the capacity thanks to their new virtualization capabilities.

The price you would pay for an entry level system is also quite reasonable. You can have one of IBM’s latest server platform for around 6,500$ (prices may vary). If you like to upgrade later on, you are also provided with a lot of upgrade options. Scalability is practically built into the servers, so upgrading is the last issue you could probably have with IBM Power 7 server systems.

What is your take on the new IBM server solution? Do you find it reliable, or do you favor another product over the IBM? If you are a proud owner of a Power 7, we are more than curious to monitoring.php” target=”_blank”>monitor your IBM server and check if the system meets the average 99.99% uptime.

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The Uptime Project is the arena for the hardcore enthusiasts to compete against each other by comparing their … uptime. It is as simple as it sounds. The site holds records for different machines and, of course, their uptime.

The site has been running for over 3 years now. It hosts the uptime of over 2000 machines, but only 500 are online for most of the time. Their goal is to find the machine with the most uptime and the contest is opened to everyone. What you need to enter is simply one of their tools, which can be found on google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uptimeprj.com%2Fdownload%2Findex%2Fen%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHGl7Xyl58f1VHiVUomXCRULEmeFw” target=”_blank”>their website. Multiple platforms are supported, including various Linux distribution, Windows, Mac, Sun and I even saw an Android device in the google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uptimeprj.com%2Ftoplist%2Findex%2Fen%2F0-30%2FUZD%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNH1wtroQ7MVRgs3Xedqy4zkaBROkg” target=”_blank”>rankings.

It is an amusing little project and I found the Windows application to be an easy way to get information about your systems uptime, without digging through command prompt.

Currently the record is held by a Sun server, running Solaris 2.6 (release date July 1997). If you have a machine which never stopped running for the last 5 years and a half you have a good chance of beating the current winner.

What is the longest time you had between reboots? Let us know by using the comment section below.

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monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/a7b0b_4833934671_85131cdbb7_o.jpg” title=”The world” class=”right” width=”200″ height=”135″ />It doesn’t feel like 2000 was all that long ago, does it? But on the Internet, a decade is a long time. Ten years ago we were in the era of the dot-com boom (and bust), the Web was strictly 1.0, and google was just a baby.

Since then people have welled onto the Internet. You don’t actually realize how many more people are on the Internet now until you start comparing numbers. This article is an in-depth study of how the number of Internet users has grown in the past decade.

We’ll start with the whole world, then world regions, then break it down even further into countries. As you’ll see, a lot has happened.

Worldwide Internet users, 2000 and 2010

First off, the one thing you probably wanted to know right away. Here is how much the Internet has grown since the year 2000.

monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/f98c1_5104240707_f1513849a2_o.png” title=”Internet users worldwide in 2000 and 2010″ class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”175″ />

There were only 361 million Internet users in 2000, in the entire world. For perspective, that’s barely two-thirds of the size of monitoring.com/blog/2010/03/17/facebook-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>facebook today.

The chart really says it all. There are more than five times as many Internet users now as there were in 2000. And as has been noted elsewhere, the number of Internet users in the world is now close to passing two billion and may do so before the end of this year.

The Internet hasn’t just become larger, it’s also become more spread out, more global.

• In 2000, the top 10 countries accounted for 73% of all Internet users.
• In 2010, that number has decreased to 60%.

This becomes evident when viewing the distribution of Internet users for the top 50 countries in 2000 and in 2010. Note how much “thicker” the tail of the 2010 graph is.

monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/f98c1_5104832446_3391625b4a_o.png” title=”Distribution of Internet users in the top 50 Internet countries in 2000 and 2010″ class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”350″ />

Thanks to this growth, there are now many more countries with a significant presence on the Internet. Here’s another way to see how much things have changed:

Internet users by world region, 2000 and 2010

Now that we’ve established that the number of Internet users is more than five times as large as it was in 2000, how has that growth been distributed through the different regions of the world?

monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/f7d2b_5104237195_816f1e32d5_o.png” title=”Internet users by region in 2000 and 2010″ class=”alignnone” width=”580″ height=”400″ />

Back in 2000, Asia, North America and Europe were almost on an even footing in terms of Internet users. Now in 2010, the picture is a very different one. Asia has pulled away as the single largest region, followed by Europe, then by North America, and a significant distance exists between the three.

It’s also highly notable how the number of Internet users in Africa has increased. In 2000, the entire continent of Africa had just 4.5 million Internet users. In 2010 that has grown to more than 100 million.

Top countries, 2000 and 2010

Let’s start with what the situation looked like ten years ago. Note how the United States had more than twice as many Internet users as any other country.

Now compare it with the situation today (we included the position in 2000 within parenthesis):

Comparing the top 10 in 2010 with that of 2000, the countries have been shuffled around quite a lot, with China now firmly at the top.

New arrivals in the top 10 are India, Brazil, Russia and Nigeria. This of course means that some other countries have dropped out. South Korea is now at number 11, Italy at number 15, Canada at number 20, and Australia at number 27.

And look closely at the numbers for Nigeria. In 2000, the country had 200,000 Internet users. Contrast that with today’s 44 million. That’s quite a boost.

Although the United States has lost its position as the largest country on the Internet to China, it’s still one of the “big two.”

• The United States and China are currently the only two countries with more than 100 million Internet users.
• China has more Internet users in 2010 than the entire Internet did in 2000. The country has actually grown with more Internet users than the entire Internet had in 2000.

Top gainers (countries)

Since we’re looking at how things have changed between 2000 and 2010, we thought we’d include a section here showing which countries have grown the most on the Internet.

There’s another interesting segment, countries that have managed to grow their numbers with tens of thousands of percent. These are countries that had a very weak Internet presence ten years ago, but have now managed to gain much wider access to the Internet. One of these countries, Nigeria, has even grown to the extent that it’s now the 10th largest country on the Internet.

Although most of these countries are still relatively small on the Internet, you have to remember that some of them either don’t have huge populations, or are in less-than-ideal situations in terms of for example infrastructure. But there’s no doubt that developing countries are starting to catch up.

Conclusion

If anyone ever thought the Internet was something of a fad, those mouths have been permanently silenced during the past decade, and these numbers show why.

We also like how the Internet is becoming more widely distributed across the world. It’s no longer a club dominated by a few top countries.

And you have to admit that it’s interesting looking back and realizing how relatively small the Internet was back in 2000. The 361 million Internet users from back then seem a tiny amount compared to today’s (almost) 2 billion.

Data source:
Internet World Stats.

Liked this article? Then you might want to check out:
The top 20 countries on the Internet, and what the future might bring

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Monitor your online store using Site24x7 How-to add Web App Monitor? | Did You Know? | Key Upcoming Features It is raining web-based applications these days. Almost every business use online store and employ business productivity tools to boost their revenue. It is all good to have, but if users can’t access those applications on time, the purpose is defeated. monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/4877b_web-app4.png?p=Oct_21_2010_2″ title=”Web Application monitoring” border=”0″ /> You need to ensure these web apps are running 24x7x365, and Site24x7’s monitoring.html” target=”_blank” title=”Web Application Monitor”> Web Application Monitor feature will help you do that. Its monitoring.html” title=”Multi-location monitoring” target=”_blank”> multi-location monitoring capability helps you track end-user experience of your web apps from across the globe. If there is a performance slowdown, Site24x7 will instantly notify you. You can then take corrective actions before your users encounter any issues. Steps to add Web Application Monitor: Login to Site24x7 and browse ‘ New Monitor —> Web Application ‘. Download the Site24x7 Recorder Tool . Type in the URL of the web application and then start recording. Save the recording of your application using your account credentials. Logging back into Site24x7, you will find that the web app monitor has been added automatically and monitoring has begun. You can also take a look at this online video of how to record and monitor your web application. Did You Know? Tired of adding website monitors one by one? With the Import URLs option, you can simply bulk import ‘n’ number of website monitors and start monitoring them. Navigate ‘ New Monitor —> Website ‘. Click on ‘ Import URL ‘ and click ‘ Browse ‘ to upload your CSV file from your hard disk location. You can include CSV file with information such as website URL, polling interval, secondary location(s), monitor group name and so on. And Voila! The websites are added and monitoring has begun. Key Upcoming Features in Site24x7 Our developers have been working on some cool upcoming features for Site24x7. We don’t want to spill the beans but would like to give you a taste of whats to come: monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/04/twitter-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>twitter integration, multi-location mail server monitoring and more. Follow us:    monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/04/twitter-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>twitter.com/site24x7″ target=”_blank”> monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/4877b_monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/04/twitter-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>twitter.png?p=Oct_21_2010_2″ title=”Follow us at monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/04/twitter-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>twitter” border=”0″ />    monitoring.com/blog/2010/03/17/facebook-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>facebook.com/pages/Site24x7/95063794977″ target=”_blank”> monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/17e80_monitoring.com/blog/2010/03/17/facebook-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>facebook.png?p=Oct_21_2010_2″ title=”Join us at monitoring.com/blog/2010/03/17/facebook-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/”>facebook” border=”0″ />    monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/17e80_rss_logo27x27.jpg?p=Oct_21_2010_2″ title=”Subscribe to our Blog” border=”0″ />    Access Archives

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monitoring.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/3b861_3992854650_f8501c2bd9_o.jpg” title=”Apple” class=”right” width=”150″ height=”190″ />Yesterday, Apple announced that it will be launching an App Store for Mac OS X, modelled after the App Store for iPhone and iPad. It will be available 90 days from now and we believe it will be a game-changer for several reasons.

Why? Because it maps a very successful concept from the handheld world to the world of the personal computer (yes, the Mac is a PC…), and it translates very well.

Here is why it will be a success:

• Apple is the payment proxy, which makes payments easier and safer for users. Developers don’t have to handle payments, and users get a streamlined way to pay for apps. Yes, developers have to give Apple a cut, but that should easily be compensated by increased sales and sheer convenience. See the next point.
• Easier, safer payments = more app sales. People will buy more apps since there are less obstacles in the way (perceived or real). It’s just one click.
• Easier to find the apps you want. Instead of having to go through the entire Web, you can search in one place. This of course provided that the Mac App Store will be widely adopted, but we think it will.
• Added exposure for apps, especially quality apps which will climb to the top. Users will effectively be voting with their wallets (or downloads, in case of free apps).
• A central, standard mechanism for updating apps. This is more of a biggie than people maybe realize yet. It’s an elegant approach and should simplify the process of keeping every app on the Mac up to date.
• Automatic installs. Installing apps is very simple on the Mac, but the user still has to do something. Now even that extra step is removed. The value of convenience shouldn’t be underestimated, and it’s highly likely that this added simplicity will boost the number of apps that people choose to install, because it’s never a bother.
• In-app purchases. The iOS App Store has support for in-app purchases, so we assume that the same will apply to the Mac App Store. This opens up a whole new market for additional content and plugins for Mac OS X applications.

And it’s still your Mac. If you want to sidestep the Mac App Store, you’ll be able to do so regardless if you’re a developer or end user. But why would you want to?

The key word here is convenience. All in all, the Mac App Store will make life easier and safer for users, which is also a win for developers and will lead to more apps being sold and downloaded. In other words, it’s a win-win situation for everyone (including Apple, of course).

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Our checkpoint Amsterdam 2, The Netherlands will be moved to Haarlem, The Netherlands.
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