Faster websites with lazy loading
It is sometimes said that runners die. This does not apply to websites. The faster the better! Faster websites provide a better user experience. A faster-loading website is also appreciated by Google. So several reasons to make sure your website is as fast as possible!
On all Plaece websites, it is possible to activate the so-called "Lazy Load". This enables a special technique to load all images on the website more efficiently.
What is the problem
When you open a page on the website, all elements on that page are loaded from top to bottom. This means that all images are loaded directly. This ensures that the whole page is available at once, even when scrolling down directly.
One disadvantage of this approach is that it also loads images that may never be viewed. Using "Lazy Loading", only the images that are actually in view are loaded.
It can also take some time for the entire web page to load (depending on the speed of your internet connection and the number of images on the page). The loading time of the page is used by Google in its ranking in search results (fast websites are better appreciated and therefore score better in the ranking).
As all images are downloaded in one go, it may happen that an image has not yet been downloaded when scrolling down quickly. The moment the image has finished downloading, it becomes visible on the website. This can cause the content of that page to suddenly jump down (because an image is suddenly loaded between the texts).
How lazy load works
When using "Lazy Load", only the images that are actually visible in the image are downloaded. All other images are not loaded yet. As soon as the page is scrolled and new images come into view, they are actually downloaded. In this way, huge savings are made on the number of images downloaded.
In addition, a space is already reserved for the images on the page. This way, it is clear to the user that an image is being loaded there, and the content does not jump to the bottom when the image has finished downloading.
The benefits
- Less data downloaded
- The page initially loads much faster
- No more staggered content.
- Fewer server requests
What it delivers: the first results
Following the first internal tests, we are seeing the first results. In the coming period, several more optimisations will be implemented, allowing us to achieve significant speed gains:
- Pages load 17% faster
- Data consumption reduced by 30%
- The server needs to process 20% fewer requests
The above figures are based on a number of internal tests. From now on, the Lazy Load functionality will be activated on all Plaece websites. At that time, we will also be able to run new tests to measure the exact effect.