Want your web site to display more quickly? This book presents 14 specific rules that will cut 25% to 50% off response time when users request a page. Author Steve Souders, in his job as Chief Performance Yahoo!, collected these best practices while optimizing some of the most-visited pages on the Web. Even sites that had already been highly optimized, such as Yahoo! Search and the Yahoo! Front Page, were able to benefit from these surprisingly simple performance guidelines.

The rules in High Performance Web Sites explain how you can optimize the performance of the Ajax, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, and images that you've already built into your site -- adjustments that are critical for any rich web application. Other sources of information pay a lot of attention to tuning web servers, databases, and hardware, but the bulk of display time is taken up on the browser side and by the communication between server and browser. High Performance Web Sites covers every aspect of that process.

Each performance rule is supported by specific examples, and code snippets are available on the book's companion web site. The rules include how to:

• Make Fewer HTTP Requests


• Use a Content Delivery Network


• Add an Expires Header


• Gzip Components


• Put Stylesheets at the Top


• Put Scripts at the Bottom


• Avoid CSS Expressions


• Make JavaScript and CSS External


• Reduce DNS Lookups


• Minify JavaScript


• Avoid Redirects


• Remove Duplicates Scripts


• Configure ETags


• Make Ajax Cacheable

If you're building pages for high traffic destinations and want to optimize the experience of users visiting your site, this book is indispensable.

"If everyone would implement just 20% of Steve's guidelines, the Web would be a dramatically better place. Between this book and Steve's YSlow extension, there's really no excuse for having a sluggish web site anymore."
-Joe Hewitt, Developer of Firebug debugger and Mozilla's DOM Inspector
"Steve Souders has done a fantastic job of distilling a massive, semi-arcane art down to a set of concise, actionable, pragmatic engineering steps that will change the world of web performance."
-Eric Lawrence, Developer of the Fiddler Web Debugger, Microsoft Corporation

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Excellent, Concise Guide,  October 31 2007
Submitted by Justin Pease   [Respond | View]

One of the most noticeable and least expensive improvements you can make to increase the speed of your website is to implement these front-end techniques.

It is true that, the 14 principles can be found in the description of the book, or with the excellent YSlow tool delivered by Yahoo! Developer Network.

So why should you buy the book??

The book explains "why" these 14 principles are best, and it does so in a concise format.

If you currently work professionally with the front-end side of a website (or would like to someday) this book should be considered a required read. At less than US$30, it is an inexpensive and practical investment into your on-going education.

Don't settle with just knowing "how" to make your site faster, get the book and learn "why" these steps make your site faster. You'll be a better and more valuable developer for it.

A Great Resource!,  October 04 2007
Submitted by Jen B.   [Respond | View]

This book is extremely well organized and easy to read. It is code-oriented; server and database tuning are not addressed though some general ideas are discussed in passing.

Narrative explanations are combined with real world examples and code samples to illustrate each of the fourteen "rules" for tuning a web site. He clearly explains the pros and cons of each option, and why some techniques are better than others. He provides a primary recommendation but also discusses other options at length. This book is scalable to help developers of small-business web sites up to enterprise e-commerce sites.

Many of the "rules" are not necessarily a surprise to anyone with much web development experience. However the speed comparison charts and illustrations are extremely helpful, and many helpful "gold nuggets" of information are also sprinkled throughout.

After a full read, this book is now on my shelf within easy reach so that I can refer to the invaluable tips and code samples. I highly recommend that any serious web developer add this book to their bookshelf!


Well organized tips and tricks on web site performance,  October 03 2007
Submitted by jdruin   [Respond | View]

This book is an excellent guide for web developers looking to write optimized HTML. The book is organized into 14 categories of performance enhancements with a chapter decicated to each category. There is also a chapter on techniques in use by top websites, a chapter on HTTP as it applies to performace, and a chapter on the "Golden Rule" of web page preformance (Most time is not spend downloading the main page).

With each of the performance category chapters is a break down of the tips and tricks that allow browsers to load, fetch and/or render pages faster. Some rules (such as using a content delivery network) would apply to large or enterprize sites but the majority of the hints can be used on any web page down to the smallest home page.

The book is well organized and easy to use. The font and page size are good for reading while sitting at a computer. The reference section which gives links to examples for each tip in the book is outstanding. It is broken down by chapter, then by tip within chapters.

The presentation is form the point of view of performance so there was material on how the browser works internally as well as explanations of external browser behavior.

Overall, this is a very nice guide of web site performance ideas.



Quick Read!,  September 29 2007
Submitted by Anonymous Reader   [Respond | View]

I really enjoyed reading High Performance Web Sites.

After beginning with the performance golden rule and a brief introduction http the book devotes a chapter to each of the fourteen optimization rules that the author has developed while working at Yahoo!. The rules are presented in order of importance. The final chapter analyzes some high profile web sites to see how they stack up.

This book taught me a lot about how to optimize the loading of the web sites I write. Books like this are ones that I devour quickly and then want to share with others so they can befit. The small size of this book goes hand in hand with this desire. Since it is such a quick read coworkers are more likely to be willing to read it and less likely to put it off.

The explanations of each rule give you a clear understanding of the "whys" and not just the "hows". Most of the rules are illustrated with examples hosted on the authors web site (http://stevesouders.com/hpws/). You'll want to have had some experience developing web sites to gain the most from this book.

If you are in need of speeding up a web page, but don't know where to start I'd recommend this book. It is filled with practical first-hand knowledge and insight. Who knows, you may want to loan it out to a friend or two when you are finished. I know I do.

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