1.First off, sprite images. I read that it's recommended to put all your images into one big picture is more efficient in terms of loading time, is that true? So loading five 32x32 pictures takes longer time than five 160x160 images if it's the same image in the latter case? Also, if that's true, does it mean that the px size of the image don't matter much? I made a sprite before and I put 5px margin between each image so it would be easier to see. Does it matter or would having no margin at all and cram the images together be faster? 2.I have several widgets on my site that have h1 tags inside their iframe. Since it's inside an iframe, does that mean it won't interfer with my own h1 tag I put for the site? 3.How many 'h' tags are you supposed to have? h1 for title, h2 for postheading, h3 for sidebar, h4 for the navigationbar? Or is it enough with just h1 and h2? 4.Can someone confirm this? http://www.seoinc.com/seo-blog/google-now-indexing-facebook-comments-other-third-party-comments/ 5.I have read so much about people trying to SEO the facebook comments left on their site by accessing the API, open graph but according to that article that won't be needed? Sorry for posting so many questions once again. I have searched before posting this thread and these are more for clarification/confirmation.
Personally I think the file extension would be the biggest factor the larger the file longer it will take to load.
The incorrectly named "CSS Sprites" can indeed speed loading time, but you have to look at a good number of factors on that. It is best reserved for 'theme images' -- aka Images that are NOT part of the content. Some images are not viable for combining, others end up so much larger in file size (depending on the number of colors used and presence of transparency) you lose the advantage. For things like commonly used icons or theme images (gradients, corners, etc) the reduction in handshakes can really be worth the time. Ever notice when you upload files via FTP that it takes longer to upload one-hundred separate 10k files than it does a single 1000k file? That's "Handshaking" -- between each file instructions and requests are sent back and forth between the client and server, and that can often take as much or even more time than the actual transfer of the file, SEPARATE from the speed of the connection. Ever heard of "ping time" -- that's the time between sending on one end of a connection and it reaching the other end. That "Handshaking" of the browser saying "Do you have this file?", Server going "Yes, I have it" and then your browser saying "Ok, send it to me"... each of those basically takes the same amount of time as a 'ping' to the server would... so if you have a 200ms ping time to the server, a request has 600ms of overhead in handshaking -- again, SEPARATE from your actual connection speed. Now, browsers CAN request multiple files at the same time, so the general rule of thumb is to divide by three as a average -- in most cases the 'guesstimate' of overhead is 200ms minimum for each file past the first eight... so if you have 50 separate little tiny files, that's 10000ms -- TEN SECONDS, and that's under ideal conditions. Someone on a shared public connection, or a bandwidth restricted mobile connection, or the poor sods in Australia being raped by their ISP's alongside their canadian cousins on things like bandwidth caps, overage charges, and just plain poor connects that 200ms minimum? Try a full on second. Suddenly a 60 file page is taking 50 seconds to load REGARDLESS of how 'fast' the connection is. ... which is why image recombination (aka CSS sprites), reducing the number of separate includes (scripts, frames) and just in general keeping the total file count under control is important. Which is why for most 'templates' not counting the page's content, I have an ideal target size of 72k in 12 files, and a maximum limit of twice that... AND that's for HTML+CSS+SCRIPTS+IMAGES -- if you can't make the page without the "content" part fit those limits, it's time to throw the entire layout/design concept in the trash and start over... Since CONTENT is the important part, not the goofy graphics you hang on it. As to your 'widgets' -- first off, is this 1997? No, then you probably shouldn't have frames, even iFrame's in the page. Admittedly a lot of crappy code (like the garbage vomited up by the social networking crowd) still relies on them due to the ineptitude of thier developers not understanding how to use OBJECT or worse, intentionally trying to bypass browser security (thanks facebook!) -- but still it's something to be avoided on usability/accessibility grounds. Which is why they were deprecated back in 1998! That said, each frame is a separate website -- so H1 inside them shouldn't make any difference to the parent page/site. As to the use of numbered headings -- it's VERY simple, and few people do it properly. You have to look at it from the perspective of a document writer... where headings have 'levels' -- a lower order (higher numbered in HTML) heading indicates the start of a subsection of the higher order (lower numbered) heading preceeding it. That's what numbered headings are FOR... Which is why what you said is all wrong -- Is the sidebar a subsection of those post headings? Seems unlikely... is the navigation a subsection of the sidebar?!? OF course not! A h1 is the heading under which ALL subsections of the page are... well, subsections... A h2 indicates a subsection of the H1, a h3 indicates the start of a subsection of a h2, so on and so forth. That's why skipping to a H4 without a H3 or H2 before it is just semantic gibberish. In your example, what you said should be a H3 or H4 should probably be H2... Unless of course you are chosing your HTML based on the default appearance of the tags like it's still 1997, instead of for what they MEAN! ... and there's one more Hx to keep in mind -- HR, aka horizontal rule. It actually has a semantic meaning (that even the steaming pile known as HTML5 agrees with) of being a change in topic / break between sections when a heading is unwanted, unwarranted, or just inappropriate. You don't like how the HR looks on your screen layout, hide it. (my screen.css sets all HR to display:none) Which of course is why HTML 5's "SECTION" tag is a bunch of pointless redundant crap -- since you should already be marking sections with headings or breaks! ... and why HTML 5's "NAV" tag for skipping past content on a page is also pointless redundant bloat -- to proper heading and rule structures. So Hx tags are for structure -- when you make the H1 ask "Is everything on the page a subsection of this heading?" - when you use a lower order (higher numbered) heading ask "Is this a subsection of the higher order (lower numbered) heading before it?" If not, you're using the wrong level of heading! You can check this in tools like the web developer toolbar for FF, where if you go into Information -> Document Outline you can see a 'tree' of the headings, warnings on missing headings, and get an overall idea of if your 'structure' makes the least bit of sense. As to the SEO via Facebook -- well, like most of the SEO hoodoo voodoo, my gut reaction is to call "BULL****!!!" on it. It just sounds like more of the made up bull the so called "SEO Experts" come up with to prey on the ignorance of nubes and continue to justify their ridiculous halfwit nonsense of turning a small but important part of building a website into a cottage industry filled with scam artists.