Is it possible to detect the bandwidth of a Web site visitor?

You can buy a database with bandwidth data for most IP addresses in the US: MaxMind GeoIP Netspeed. You copy this to your application server and do a real-time lookup when a visitor comes to your site. I have used MaxMind before for location data, but not the Netspeed module, so I don’t know how good it is.

I think your solution is to design your site to your lowest common denominator. Your stats can tell you what type of browser, connection, etc your visitors typically are using. Work to the level that the majority of your visitors are at.

Unless, of course, that’s Internet Explorer 6. Woah!!!

@Jep C.: I’ll for sure take a look at this. Thanks for bringing this up!

@Ross G.: What type of stats are you getting that shows the visitors connection? I have never seen anything that shows what type of connection you’re on. We only get browser type and version, OS and version, etc. Are you pulling something to what Jep C. recommended?

Jeff

Google Analytics. Check it out. It’s free too!

@Ross G.: Ok, but does GA have an API that will allow me to call on the fly to determine the current client’s connection speed and display content accordingly?

So far, unless Ross proves me wrong with GA, I will be investigating Jep’s recommendation of MaxMind. Our CEO is wanting a “beefy” site for channels that can handle that and very minimal for slower avenues. We are also trying to avoid a landing page by determining the speed on the fly (if possible).

Jeff

I’m not sure if Google Analytics has that. I highly doubt it’s results will go down to the individual user.

I’d still lean away from developing different content for your different users. Sounds like extra work and a good way to confuse your members (accessing from different points) and your employees (talking to members about two different websites).

If you can avoid maintaining two websites I would do so. Even with a proper content management system it will save you a lot of time to only maintain 1 site. Then you can spend more time on optimizing your site based on Web Analytics reports.

I would start with measuring the bandwidth of your current visitors so you know how many are still on dial-up. As Ross suggested, Google Analytics is a good tool for that: just include a JavaScript tag on your home page (or all pages, if you want) and you’ll get a good estimate within a couple of days.

There are lots of ways to make a beefy site still perform reasonably well on a dial-up connection. For our customers we use a lot of Ajax web technology, often to replace heavy Flash websites. Also, take a look at Yahoo!’s guidelines for exceptional website performance.

I took a quick look at your current website, and I think you should be able to make it load faster by using the Yahoo suggestions.

Thanks for all the replies. Our site could load A LOT faster than what it is right now… Basically, the reason we’re anting to dish out two is because all we’re going to replace is the style sheet associated with the site. We won’t necessarily be maintaining two sites, just two style sheets…

Anyways, enough about the details, I agree maintaining two sites would be a hassle. I guess I just need to tell our CEO if bandwidth can be determined on the fly…

All good responses, Ross and Jep! I appreciate it!

If anyone has suggestions for landing pages, which I’d like to avoid, I’d be interested in seeing them as well.

I’m confusing,

Jeff

These days, anybody still on dial-up is used to slow speeds OR not interested in using the Internet for banking. I wouldn’t worry about it. Also, I would keep the site lean for all bandwidths, because these days people are likely to not even bother with a slow-loading page. Google is even lowering their rankings in the SERPs.

Good point, Michael, and i totally agree. But, a board member still uses dial-up and complains about the speed of using our site… While it is beefy, and could be minimized quite a bit, we still have others in Marketing and higher up that love the big bulky stuff… This happens by people not understanding the Web and how people like to surf…

Chalk it up to me not having the skills to properly educate them… But, I’m trying! We presented a very minimal site that is very “Web 2.0” looking, minimizing images by using CSS, doing cute stuff with Javascript, etc. but it wasn’t “flashy” enough…

We’re still working on it…

I appreciate all the comments to this question.

Jeff

Well, you can get the board member’s IP and cut the flashy stuff just for him. That’s easy, isn’t it?

:)

@Jeff – This is totally on our web stuff but we use Google Analytics & haveamint.com for stats. Mint has a ‘Pepper’ AKA widget that tells me the speed of the users coming to the site. I can’t verify it’s accuracy but it gives us some insight.