Presidential Politics and Web Response Time Rarely Mix

File this under “The Biggest Reach For A Web Site Traffic Analysis Company.” Gomez decided to look at the Web performance of the major presidential candidates. Thats fair, but it then suggested a linkage between page response rates and the donations that candidate can bring in.

“While there is more to solidifying a candidate’s relationship with Web-savvy voters than just the speed of the campaign Web site, it surely is one element that affects the impression a voter receives about each candidate,” the Gomez statement said. “Gomez believes it also can affect the success of a candidate’s online fundraising.”

Whats wrong with that picture? I can just imagine some of the larger lobbying companies saying, “This one has the best shot at victory and is open to our position, but his homepages refresh is so 20th Century. Well pass.”

The results? On the Dem side, “Hillary Clinton’s online donations page was more than twice as fast as Barack Obama’s donations page, though Obama’s homepage was, on average, about half-a-second faster than Clinton’s.” That half-sec is truly crucial with those swing voters.

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On the GOP side, “Gomez found that Mitt Romney’s online donations page was two times slower than John McCain’s and 50 percent slower than Rudolph Giuliani’s.”

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