Front Page Gone!

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  photos4u2c · Member · May 23, 2011 at 4:44 pm

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  The front page of my blog is gone! When I go to photos4u2c.wordpress.com it says, “Whoops! Whatever you are looking for cannot be found.”

  I haven’t messed with any settings or made any changes. What’s up?

  Thanks for any help. I did some traffic generating stuff over the weekend and I don’t want new readers to be welcomed to a blank page.

  Dave

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  auxclass · Member · May 23, 2011 at 4:50 pm

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  I clicked on you name and your web site loaded just fine for me.

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  timethief · Member · May 23, 2011 at 4:53 pm

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  I can see your blog which takes an extraordinarily long time to load due to the number of post with large images in them on the front page of your blog. Page loading time is a pageranking factor. Please reduce the number of posts displaying on your front page > Settings > Reading and consider inserting “the more tag” into your posts so only an excerpt displays on the front page and visitors click a read more link to view the whole post on it’s own page. http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/

  As I can view your front page and you can’t this points to a browser issue.

  • You could have a browser issue so try changing your browser settings, refreshing the page, or clearing the browser cache and cookies – instructions for specific browsers.
  • Note that when you make adjustments to your browser settings — changing privacy settings, deleting cookies or increasing security — you will need to close your window and restart the browser before those new settings become effective.
  • You could try upgrading your browser.
  • You could try using another browser.

  Which browser and version of it are you using?

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  photos4u2c · Member · May 23, 2011 at 5:00 pm

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  Thanks for all the great suggestions. I’m using firefox. Guess it’s time to clear the cache.

  I didn’t realize my page was taking a huge amount of time to load. I realize it has a lot of big photos, but most people have a high speed connection these days and I thought my page wasn’t too much to handle. One of my favorite photo blogs is http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/ They have way more photos per page than i do and they don’t seem to have any problems.

  Maybe it’s time to go with the more button option. I’ve been kicking that idea around for awhile, but mainly I’m just too lazy to fiddle with a new blog gadget. My next post might get the “More” treatment.

  Thanks much

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  timethief · Member · May 23, 2011 at 5:04 pm

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  Most people do NOT have high speed connections – that’s a myth. It’s important for bloggers to keep in mind that at least half of all internet users are currently using dial up connections.

  What that means to us is that half of our visitors are downloading the pages at about 3-4 kilobytes per second. And it’s estimated that if a page has not loaded with within 3 – 5 seconds we can stand to lose one third of our visitors.

  “The question of whether broadband will replace dial-up residential service for Internet connectivity is not the issue. Someday, the vast majority of connections will be full-time, high-speed connections using one of the emerging broadband technologies. And the majority of the Internet industry is devoting substantial efforts and resources to make that happen more quickly.

  This effort, however, does not automatically spell the end of dial-up connectivity. For starters, the explosion of broadband is limited to a handful of countries that include the US, Australia, Canada and Japan. In great Britain, for example, broadband connections account for only about one percent of the residential Internet market. By most estimates, and these are very conservative, there will be a healthy market for dial-up residential and small business accounts for years to come.” — Dave McClure, President, US Internet Industry Association

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  auxclass · Member · May 23, 2011 at 5:05 pm

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  the more button is good – as is optimizing your pictures (smaller file size) – there are still a lot of slow links out there, and the site was slow to load for me – some sites have one Post that is full up and the rest use the more tag so regular visitors don’t need to load the whole thing each time.

  Also go over to the bigpicture site and check their file sizes – if they load quick then I would bet they have made the pictures smaller file size for quick loading.

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  timethief · Member · May 23, 2011 at 5:09 pm

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  ~~ auxclass
  I agree with you re: the big picture site. All the images are likely optimized and compressed prior to upload into the site so they load more quickly.Having said that I clicked in and out without waiting for the whole page to load. I simply will not wait more than 3 seconds and then I’m history.

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  photos4u2c · Member · May 23, 2011 at 5:15 pm

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  Thanks again.

  My pictures are web optimized. I specially squash all blog photos in Photoshop before uploading. Since I am a photography nut I like my pictures posted large. They are always 950 pixels wide. I use the photoshop save for web feature to help with load times.

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  auxclass · Member · May 23, 2011 at 5:15 pm

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  ~~TT

  The big picture is slow to load for me – ran my internet connection wide open for a while – pictures seem to be 300k to 600k in size – I am a bit more tolerant than you for load time but not much.

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  1tess · Moderator Emeritus · May 23, 2011 at 5:21 pm

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  Really, for the web pictures should be optimized 100k or below! More desirable, 50k or less!!! The resolution online is 72 and the extra size does nothing but waste time and upload space.