In HTML, one can reference a file that contains just javascript by using the javascript tag with the src attribute:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.server.com/myscript.js”></script>

This can have some benefits with regard to performance, except when the file is located on a different server that you have no control over.  Having more than one of these external javascript links can make matters even worse.

Take example the site Team Sugar.  I stumbled upon this site while doing a blog search for “slow website” on Google.  One person’s post on that site lead me to it and the source pointed out some revealing facts: there are numerous external resources. 

While the site does not take very long to load, it has the potential to slow to a crawl, should one of the external links slow. 

My suggestion?  Add the “defer” attribute to the <javascript> tag and reduce/eliminate the external links.

Visit Team Sugar here:

http://teamsugar.com/1574837