changing page sizes

[RobBroekhuis]

Looking at my logs, I see that the page size returned for one of my main dynamic pages varies by as much as 6000 bytes (for a 40000 byte max size). The page is database-driven, and the database is not changing. For all I can tell, the page is staying the same - at least what's presented to the surfing public. Can someone enlighten me as to what's going on?
Thanks!


Rob

 

[ingresman]

Can you catch the page and look at it ?

 

[Olavxxx]

Maybe the pagesize varies on what attatchments the visitors clients can view?

eg. if you run a non gui browser, I guess the browser may not download the images?

Also, does your dynamic pages have some nested if/else, which will affect how the data will be displayed to the user?

eg. "show small / large thumbs" for a gallery, might affect the pagesize.

a very graphical page, might be smaller for a browser that does not downlad images.. (crawler or whatever).

If someone uses a siteripper on your page, they can also define what it is to download, and I guess that then it does not download anything other than what you specify.. (you can specify it should not download .gif, .pdf, etc.)

Olav Alexander Mjelde

http://www.volvo-power.net

Admin & Webmaster

 

[RobBroekhuis]

Image sizes don't matter in the page size - they are loaded separately. The logic for the page is exactly the same each time (there are no changeable parameters), and the different sizes are served up to the same user using the same browser (two examples: me, and Googlebot). I've seen the most extreme variations with page retrievals by Googlebot, but also sizeable variations when I request the page myself. When in IE in "view source" and save the page as text, the source is identical in size, even when the number of bytes served up was quite different. I'd say it was a difference in the amount of header information going along for the ride, except the header part isn't supposed to be counted in the byte count (just look at the response to a HEAD request: it always shows 0 bytes).
Still puzzled...

Rob

 

[ingresman]

it might be worth asking in the Apache (??) forum I'd be interested.
you dont by any chance use gzip compression on the page do you ?

 

[RobBroekhuis]

Nope - no gzip compression. Thanks for the redirect to the Apache forum - I'll post here if I get a helpful response there.
Rob


Rob

 

[Olavxxx]

please post here again, if you figure out what it is..

Olav Alexander Mjelde

http://www.volvo-power.net

Admin & Webmaster

 

[ericbrunson]

You could try using a packet sniffer to dump the packets and reconstruct the data being sent then compare them.