There are many steps involved when you go to a specific site. The nature of the Internet is such that you don't typically go directly to a site. Rather, your request is routed to various "top level" servers that comprise what is known as the Internet Backbone. Typically it takes 12 or more jumps to various top level servers before you actually access the site you requested.

On a PC, you can go the DOS prompt and type tracert www.domainname and watch the actual route that you take to reach a particular name. For example entering tracert www.califmall.com resulted in the following information:

Tracing route to www.califmall.com [208.234.1.75] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 - 65 ms 42 ms 94 ms cr1-hfc5.escnd1.sdca.home.net [24.0.175.1]
2 - 64 ms 86 ms 92 ms 10.4.124.1
3 - 87 ms 91 ms 68 ms 10.0.216.11
4 - 124 ms 134 ms 87 ms 172.16.6.201
5 - 159 ms 80 ms 65 ms br1.pao1.alter.net [198.32.176.2]
6 - 461 ms 153 ms 109.ATM2-0.XR1.PAO1.ALTER.NET [146.188.148.98]
7 - 129 ms 140 ms 159 ms 289.ATM1-0.TR1.SCL1.ALTER.NET [146.188.147.126]
8 - 476 ms 178 ms 189 ms 107.ATM6-0.TR1.DCA1.ALTER.NET [146.188.136.221]
9 - 276 ms 364 ms 306 ms 199.ATM7-0.XR1.DCA1.ALTER.NET [146.188.161.133]
10 - 215 ms 193 ms 160 ms 195.ATM11-0-0.GW2.RDU1.ALTER.NET [146.188.163.169]
11 - 265 ms 162 ms 170 ms ait-gw.customer.ALTER.NET [157.130.35.138]
12 - 178 ms 108 ms 186 ms www.califmall.com [208.234.1.75]

Trace complete.

As you can see, there are a number of potential bottlenecks that can affect how quickly a site actually appears on your computer. Typically, the first few jumps are via your ISP, so if your ISP is experiencing heavy usage at any given moment any site might come up very slowly for you. If one of the "top level" servers along the route is experiencing heavy usage at any given moment any site might come up very slowly for you. Neither of these cases will necessarily affect how fast any given site might appear for another user. They might access the Internet via a different ISP than you, or their request might be routed through different "top level" servers. The only "hop" that reflects how long it takes for everybody to access is sight is usually the last one or two, as this represents how fast the computer that contains the physical files for a site is responding to requests for a site. If that server is responding slowly it may indicate that a large number of users are trying to get to a particular site (which the site's owner might think is good). The final bottleneck (which is an absolute) is the speed of the user'sdial-up equipment. If a person is trying to access a site with a 14.4 kbps modem, then that is the absolute maximim speed at which that user can receive data. A 28.8 kbps modem will receive data twice as fast, and a 56.6 kbps modem will receive data twice as fast as that. Cable connections and ISDN connections are typically 30 - 40 times faster than today's fastest modem.

These bottlenecks and limits are the primary reason that good site design is so crucial to a successful web site. If your web site uses a lot of large graphics files in order to look good, it may take so long for various users to access the contents quickly. People soon get tired of waiting while nothing happens on their screen and they leave - most often they never return. Once burned twice shy as they say. Most web designers don't know enough about these areas to design sites that look really good AND download very quickly.

WebWind Productions is highly experienced in these areas and we take great pride in creating sites that look good and are fast. Recently we received the following email.

Subject: Re: Comments Form Mail Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 23:33:50 -0700 From: debbie stock <destock@pacbell.net> Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services To: kip winsett <kipwin@cox.net >

In my brief encounters with web mastery, I've learned that site development does become quite personal as one attempts to present others' material in the best manner possible. I helped a friend by putting together his spy satellite/UFO web site which is completely different from my colorful California Tour.

Your sites show great versatility in design and comprise all the features users seek such as fast loading of pages, easy navigation and useful items.

You can quote me on that...Debbie Stock, Photojournalist