It’s very nice to see here the evolution of page weight (and other elements) over time.
I’m interesting in having the same data before 2010.
Here’s what wrote WebSiteOptimization in 2014 for the average page size :
1995 : 14,1 K
2003 : 93.7 K
2008 : 312.05 K
2009 : 507 K
2011 : 679 K
2012 : 788 K
2013 : 1’081 K
2014 : 1’622 K
I compare those values with httparchive (median desktop, 1st July) :
2011 : 540.4 K
2012 : 737.8 K
2013 : 921.6 K
2014 : 1’176.5 K
The page weight is much lower on httparchive which makes it difficult to compare data before 2010 on WebSiteOptimization and data after 2010 on httparchive.
It would be very nice if I could find an average page weight in 1995 and in 2023, calculated with the same methodology. And if possible every year.
I don’t think this would be possible. The internet archive itself started in 1996 so you could try analysing that data for a comparison but I’m not sure it would be that meaningful: most sites were scientific or IT-based.
Other than that Google might have similar data for when it started, but I doubt they’ll provide it.
httparchive itself data goes back to about 2010 but the sample size was quite small and the metrics were different.
If I was doing a historical comparison, I’d be tempted to trace a few websites over time: you can’t compare YouTube with anything before 2005. But sites like IBM.com (used to be a great reference) or some media sites (the BBC has a long history and much of the old pages are still available) would illustrate general changes. There’s probably enough there for a research paper!
