Re: Measuring server response speed

>I'm not sure if this is what your looking for, but have you run it through
>some of the online shops, like website garage? Here's the URL:
>
><http://www.websitegarage.netscape.com/>
>
>I have a sneaking suspicion that you are looking for something a little
>more hard core, but I thought I'd toss this out.

Yes. Websitegarage and netmechanic are very good but they measure 
page size. There are three pieces to response speed:

1. How long before the user reaches your server? Ping can measure 
this but looks to me like it rarely matters.

2. How long before your server starts delivering data

3. How long for the data to flow and be displayed by your browser

The biggest one is USUALLY the last one -- and the dominant factor is 
page size and the user's modem. For instance: If you have a 56K modem 
and you are visiting Adobe, the 140K (oink) their home page takes 
will take 40-some seconds. Server speed is immaterial compared to 
that.

But if you have a high speed line, server speed factors may matter. 
Take a site like half.com. Don't know what is wrong with those folks 
but their site is always hugely slow, irrespective of page size.

Anyway -- it is surprising to me that there is no one offering an 
inexpensive way to measure server response (item 2). There are some 
very pricey services like velostart and keynote that will do this on 
an ongoing basis but as far as I can tell, no one offers a quick, 
cheap measurement.

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