The level of global video streaming has skyrocketed since the Covid-19 crisis began, with more people staying at home, watching video across all their devices. The carbon footprint of this nonstop viewing isn’t easy to calculate, but it’s fair to say that it’s significant. One aggressive claim cites a six-hour video binge on Netflix as equivalent to burning a liter of fuel. Streaming involves a complex mix of data center capacity and electricity -- both of which produce carbon dioxide, the levels of which vary depending on the technology being used.

With the always-on nature of e-commerce in a world changed by a pandemic, retailers of all kinds have shifted toward e-commerce-first. The brick-and-mortar, physical experience was already on the decline, but has been accelerated by Covid-19. Buying online has become a daily habit, and while that’s shifted how retailers position themselves, how they market to consumers, and how supply chains and shipping operate, it’s also afforded some opportunities for streamlining and improvements to user experience. 

Your website's speed is not only important to your users, but also to Google. Google factors your page speed into your search ranking score and in June will rely on it more heavily for computing your Google Page Rank. This performance score is also called your Google Page Experience Score. In this blog post, I'll demonstrate how Google computes your performance score and how Varnish Enterprise can help improve it.

Online retailers have lived and died by the pre-Black Friday/holiday season code freeze almost since the dawn of e-commerce. The Black Friday-Cyber Monday shopping weekend is the biggest revenue-generating, high-traffic time of the year in US markets, and a growing staple of other global markets. No retailer can afford for their site to slow down or go down in the most make-or-break of moments.