Techniques for measuring above-the-fold page rendering

• US 20070118640A1
• Filed: 11/21/2005
• Published: 05/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Subramanian, Mahesh, Smith, Francis, Korlipara, Ramu, Ye, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,812,648 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3457 Performance evaluation by simulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation

Abstract

Techniques for measuring above-the-fold (ATF) page rendering are provided. Visible objects for an ATF portion of a browser page are identified. A start and end time for each visible object is recorded. Furthermore, a total elapsed time to finish loading each of the visible objects to the ATF portion of a browser is determined.

Claims

1. A system, including:

an above-the-fold measuring service; and

a log, wherein the above-the-fold measuring service is to receive a browser page and is to calculate an elapsed time from a beginning time to an ending time to load an above-the-fold portion of the browser page within a browser for viewing, and wherein the log is to house an identity for the browser page and the calculated elapsed time.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the above-the-fold measuring service is to receive the browser page as a Uniform Resource Locator or Universal Resource Locator link over a network from a requestor.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the above-the-fold measuring service is to also calculate additional elapsed time measurements for each object associated with the above-the-fold portion of the browser page and to record the additional elapsed time measurements within the log.

4. The system of claim 1 further including, a throttling service, wherein the throttling service is to mimic a desired network connection speed and is further adapted to deliver the browser page to the above-the-fold measuring service at the desired network connection speed.

5. The system of claim 1 further including, a requestor machine configuration service, wherein the requestor machine configuration service is to mimic a desired memory and processor configuration of a requestor'"'"'s device for the above-the-fold measuring service while the above-the-fold measuring service calculates the elapsed time.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the above-the-fold measuring service is to record in the log a location for each visible object included within the above-the-fold portion of the browser page and an elapsed time for each visible object to load within the browser.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the above-the-fold measuring service is to calculate or acquire pixel dimensions defining boundaries of the above-the-fold portion of the browser page.

8. A system, including:

an above-the-fold measuring means; and

a log, wherein the above-the-fold measuring means is for measuring an above-the-fold page loading time for loading visible objects associated with an above-the-fold portion of a browser page to a browser for viewing, and wherein the above-the-fold measuring means is to record the above-the-fold page loading time within the log.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the above-the-fold measuring means is to include an elapsed loading time and position location of each visible object within the log.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the above-the-fold measuring means is to sort the log to reveal a total elapsed loading time as a first entry in the log, and wherein the total elapsed loading time is the above-the-fold page loading time.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the above-the-fold measuring means is designed to alter the delivery speed of the browser page and a machine configuration associated with a requestor'"'"'s device that loads the browser page to mimic a requestor'"'"'s environment when calculating the above-the-fold page loading time.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the above-the-fold measuring means is to acquire pixel dimensions associated with defining the boundaries of the above-the-fold portion of the browser page.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the above-the-fold measuring means is to acquire the pixel dimensions from at least one of a predefined or assumed setting, a runtime parameter value, a table lookup value in response to an identity of a requestor'"'"'s device to which the browser page is associated.

14. A system of claim 8 further including, a reporting means to analyze the log and additional logs associated with additional above-the-fold page loading measurements for purposes of identifying trends or problem areas with above-the-fold page rendering.

15. A method, including:

determining a location of a visible object within a browser page that is located above-the-fold;

recording a start and an end time to load the visible object within a browser; and

iterating the method for each additional visible object within the browser page that is located above-the-fold.

16. The method of claim 15 further including, acquiring dimensions that define boundaries for the above-the-fold before determining the location.

17. The method of claim 15 further including, simulating a processing, a memory, and a bandwidth environment of a requestor'"'"'s environment associated with the browser page before determining the location.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein recording further includes writing for each visible object and identifier for that visible object, a location within the browser page for that visible object, and the start and end time to a log.

19. The method of claim 18, further including storing the log in a data store for at least one of subsequent comparisons, subsequent charting, subsequent trending, and subsequent reporting relative to other previously or subsequently captured logs.

20. The method of claim 18, further including sorting the log after each visible object is loaded above-the-fold, wherein the sorted log includes as a first entry a largest end time, and wherein the largest end time indicates a total elapsed time for loading each of the visible objects within the browser page.

21. The method of claim 15 further including, sending one or more alerts in response to a total elapsed loading time associated with loading each of the visible objects above-the-fold, if the total elapsed loading time exceeds or is equal to a predefined threshold.

29. A machine readable medium embodying instructions that, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform any one of the claims 15 or 22.

22. A method, including:

receiving a reference to a browser page;

resolving dimensions within the browser page that define an above-the-fold portion of that browser page for a given environment of a requestor associated with the browser page;

identifying each visible object within the above-the-fold portion and its location within the above-the-fold portion and recording a start loading time and end loading time for each of the visible objects once loaded to the above-the-fold portion within a browser; and

determining a total loading time for loading each of the visible objects to the above-the-fold portion of the browser.

23. The method of claim 22 further including, simulating for the browser at least one using a browser product associated with a browser of the requestor, using an environment configuration associated with the given environment of the requester, and using a bandwidth rate associated with a bandwidth connection of the requestor and using the simulation for determining the total load time.

24. The method of claim 22 further including, logging metrics associated with loading each of the visible objects to the above-the-fold portion of the browser.

25. The method of claim 24 further including, raising alerts if one or more of the metrics exceed or are equal to a predefined threshold.

26. The method of claim 24 further including, reiterating the processing of the method for the browser page a second time to produce a second total loading time, which is consistent with the original total loading time.

27. The method of claim 22 further including:

tracking other objects occurring below-the-fold; and

determining a total page loading time for both the whole browser page including above-the-fold and below-the-fold portions.

28. The method of claim 22, wherein resolving the dimensions further includes at least one of:

acquiring the dimensions as a pre-defined value;

acquiring the dimensions as runtime parameters to the method and associated with the received reference;

acquiring the dimensions in response to an identity of the requester; and

acquiring the dimensions in response to a table lookup associated with at least a portion of the given environment for the requester.