Gomez Names Top-Performing Sites In 2009

Best Buy Mobile

One of the key goals of the FCC's newly released national broadband plan is to make high-speed connections in U.S. homes at least 10 times faster than they are now. Until then, research firm Gomez has spotlighted the PC-based and mobile Web sites that do the best job with the current Internet infrastructure.

Gomez, a unit of Compuware, judged sites according to three key performance metrics: how fast a home page loads, how reliably it loads, and how consistently, across different locations, networks and times of day. Based on that criteria, QVC had the best retail home page in 2009, while electronics seller Newegg was deemed the best retail site through to product purchase.

The winners in other segments included Delta Airlines and Marriott Hotels in travel, Regions Banks and Fidelity in financial services, the IRS among government sites, Slate in media, and MamasHealth.com in health care.

With a mobile presence becoming increasingly important for marketers and retailers, Gomez also looked at the top-performing sites on cell phones. Google, not surprisingly, ranked tops in search, JetBlue among airlines, Bank of America in banking, and electronics chain Best Buy in retail.

Among the most improved Web sites last year in terms of speed were AOL News, which loaded 57% faster, Radisson Hotels, up 48%, and Target, 34%.

Matt Poepsel, vice president of performance strategies at Gomez, noted that the sites of bigger companies don't always outperform their smaller rivals. "You don't have to be the largest in a category -- you just have to be focused and make the right investments," he said, citing a site like MamasHealth.com.

What it lacks in size compared to competitors like WebMD or EverydayHealth, it tries to makes up in speed by forgoing graphics and video in favor of text. In addition to eschewing rich media, sites can also speed up by working with content delivery networks like Akamai, adding servers, and closely monitoring the performance of the third-party content providers.

It matters because if consumers are kept waiting even briefly, they will head elsewhere on the Web. Gomez points to a recent Forrester Research study showing that the average online shopper expects a Web page to load in two seconds or less -- down from four seconds in 2006. After three seconds, up to 40% say they will abandon a site.

Companies don't get a break on mobile devices either. "Not only are people's expectations as high or higher compared to the traditional Web, but they basically say 'we don't think of it as mobile Internet usage,'" said Poepsel. So while mobile users might not expect a mobile site to be as elaborate as a PC-based one, they expect it to be as fast and reliable as the main site. That's a tall order, given how widely mobile Web speeds can vary depending on the type of handset, data plan and wireless network being used.

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