One third of the world’s most visited sites take more than a second to load on an iPad, according to a research by Zeus Technology, who urges leading businesses online to optimise iPad sites so that Web performance is not compromised.
With the average page load time taking 0.86 seconds, the research comes off the back of findings from Amazon that every 100 millseconds of latency in page delivery time resulted in a 1% drop in sales.
Despite being some of the most traffic heavy sites worldwide, the quickest websites included the homepages of Google, Mozilla and BBC which clocked speeds of 0.046, 0.015 and 0.078 seconds, respectively on the iPad.
Zeus is encouraging other slower performing sites that receive large traffic volumes to ensure they put the correct management measures in place for iPad sites as they would for desktop designed online areas.
The research also revealed that the majority of the top visited sites globally are not offering a fully optimised Web experience on the iPad, while 82% did not have any video on their iPad sites and one third featured a video that would not work on the device due to compatibility issues.
More than a quarter (27%) of the top 100 sites do not offer personalisation options on their iPad sites, such as members areas or log-in sections, the report said.
Zeus is calling for all websites yielding large volumes of traffic to know who is visiting their site in order to prioritise regular visitors more effectively and ensure their loyalty is not compromised by frustrations about the performance of an iPad site.
Zeus Technology chief marketing officer Kosten Metreweli said with the iPad or other tablet device – highly sought after Christmas gifts this year – a new wave of users will be accessing the web through these devices in the next few months.
"If a visitor accesses a site that doesn’t offer the level of service they expect, they will go to a competing site to find what they are looking for," Metreweli said.
"Equally, if they become frustrated with a brand, the volume of social media sites available nowadays means that they can easily share their negative sentiments with other users.
"Although not all performance issues can be planned for, businesses can take simple steps to ensure services do not fail when their consumer base needs them most."
Zeus Technology measured the performance of Nielsen’s list of top 100 websites on the iPad in November 2010.