Internet World to Co-Publish GIF Wizard Efficiency Index

Posted on June 3, 1998

Raspberry Hill Publishing, Inc., developer of online applications accessed through a standard Web browser, announced that Internet World magazine is exclusively co-publishing the GIF Wizard Web Site Efficiency Index. The Index tallies the score for 100 high-traffic Web sites and also ranks the order within key industries. From the GIF Wizard site users can survey their own site, and see how it ranks. At Internet World Online the Index shows each Monday how sites rank, comparing against last week's performance. This week, a custom version the "Site Efficiency Index" debuts in Internet World's weekly newspaper. The print version of the Index will focus on website performance and design, highlighting top sites from key industries.

"Design efficiency is critical to Web site performance. When we saw the data measurements in the GIF Wizard Efficiency Index, we wanted to make this analysis available to our readers to help set a performance standard," said Robert Hertzberg, editor-in-chief of Internet World Magazine. "Our online publication's 'Statistics' area covers all the significant measurements for Web enterprise, and it just made sense to add this data on optimizing Web site design -- that is the one factor that a user can control. This is a valuable addition to our publication."

To build the index, GIF Wizard is using its "SiteScan" service to survey and report on website efficiency and "bloat" problems. Pointed to a URL, SiteScan goes down through levels of a website, checking for file size, compression and link problems that increase download times. Weekly scans of high-traffic sites calculate several indices, such as graphics-to-text-ratio, file size and file type to measure the overall bloat. A rating of 95% is excellent efficiency, while 85% or under is considered a bloated website.