BT wins gold medal in website benchmark test

The US company, which measures the time it takes to download a front page, claims the tests provide a crucial indication of the revenue potential of ecommerce sites as would-be customers are more likely to click away if the front end fails to load in a few seconds.

Olivier Carron de la Carriere, vice president of Keynote Europe, told silicon.com: "It is vital ecommerce sites know how fast customers can access their shop front and that any problems causing downtime are minimised."

BT's site took less than a second to download, while the unnamed company in 40th place completed its operation over 20 seconds later. Yahoo.co.uk came a close second with e-trade, Iceland and go-Fly completing the top five.

Matt Hanrahan, analyst at Bloor Research, told silicon.com: "Web performance is a strong growth area as businesses need to have their site in top condition at all times. Not only will customers go elsewhere, a slow site performance can damage the reputation of an e-tailer and because of the nature of the internet, bad news spreads fast."

Sandra Edler, research analyst at IDC, said that majority of heavily visited sites already monitor their web performance on a regular basis.

She said: "Many companies are already monitoring their performance either internally or externally as part of their ebusiness strategy. However, web performance monitoring should be done by an independent, non-profit making authority."

Jon Grey, home services director at Iceland, which came fourth in the tests, welcomed the results. "We are constantly reviewing our site's performance and always welcome feedback of this nature," he said.

Other site's tested included BBC, Easyjet, Microsoft and Vodafone. Keynote will repeat the tests on a weekly basis and publish the results on its site.