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Sep 15 2008

Questions about Widgets

Published by michaelnolan at 5:23 pm under Questions Edit This

Today’s question comes from Robin from U.S. Free Work From Home. Robin asks:

With the more widgets you have, does it make your pages load slower on this system database?  It could just be my service, as I have been having trouble with Charter.

In general, the more of anything that you have on your web page can cause it to load more slowly.  When it comes to widgets though it largely depends on the content of the widget itself, because it is increasing the number of locations called upon to get the information to the end user.

Let me try to explain it this way.   For the most basic of sites there are only two primary factors involved - point A (the web site host server) and point B (the end user’s Internet Service Provider).  A heavy load of traffic on point A can cause a slow down, just as a sluggish response on your ISP can.  To add to the potential bottleneck, consider this:  when a widget is requesting information from a point C (such as is the case on your website with Blogrush - the info loads from their servers when the page loads), any problems with point C’s server can cause the site to load slowly for any end user.

I hope this clears up any confusion; if not please don’t hesitate to ask me to clarify!

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2 Responses to “Questions about Widgets”

  1. Robinon 16 Sep 2008 at 3:50 pm edit this

    Now I do believe I understand it better. Thank you for giving me the 411 in terms I can understand.

  2. Travelling Blackbirdon 17 Sep 2008 at 3:24 pm edit this

    I have a widget-related question too. How do you add widgets and buttons like those from Blog Catalog to your sidebar? I’ve noticed that you and several other Today bloggers have them, but I can’t for the life of me work out how you get them on there. I’ve tried every tab in the Control Panel, and even tried adding them as links to the blog roll. What am I missing?

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