What is the current recommended web page file size?

Question

I have heard several different answers to this such as 30kb 100kb and 200kb and just want some clarification as to what is currently being recommended as the ideal size.

Answer 1

It depends on your audience.  There are plenty of people out there with what amounts to 28.8 KBAUD modems. (For example, they might have a 56 KB modem on a poor quality phone line). That's a maximum of 3 KB per second.  So 30 KB is still a minimum of ten seconds.  It also depends on your content.  I've downloaded 20 megabyte files over such a modem.  I had to really want it, though.

My rule of thumb is to always optimize the page to be as small as possible.  Even if the audience has high speed internet, the browser still has to interpret it.  Less is more.

Answer 2

I hope you don't have to make a web page that larger than that. Opera for example seems to have a nasty habit of locking up when loading very big page. TiddlyWiki, a self modifying page, sizes at least 280kb. But that doesn't mean it's recommended to make pages that big, it just means that web browsers can take it.

　Since contents nowadays make up most of the bandwidth, page size is usually no longer relevant. But if your site contains many shared resources (same images and stylesheet and scripts being used in many places), having smaller page file size can improve surfing performance, especially for dial-up narrowband internet users.

　Consider the scenario of a 56.6kb dial-up user:

　　56.6kb per second = roughly 7kB/s

　which means

　　30kB = 4.3 secs

　　100kB = 14.3 secs

　　200kB = 28.6 secs

　Now, ideal waiting time is probably around 10 secs, do the math. Note that the scenario assumes you get maximum speed from your connection. Most of the time, it's only 3-4kB/s, depending on the service quality.

　As for broadband users, most of these may seem irrelevent. But congestion should also be considered. If you can save up web page size, you can reduce network load.

　I say 100kB then. By the way, Wikipedia's main page is around 60kB.