Why are web pages slow to load when accessing the CCC web site?

There are many factors which influence your speed on the internet at any particular time and it is difficult to say what may be causing your particular problem.  However, some of the common issues which affects perceived access speed to our site include:

  • The speed of your connection to the internet (56k modem(slow), DSL(better), Cable(best))
  • Our ISP providing web site support for CCC has server or network access related problems
  • Overall internet traffic loads when your online (early morning & evening can be slower than at other times)
  • Your own ISP has capacity constraints at the time you request information
  • A virus or spyware related infection on your computer affecting overall PC performance
  • Some pages of CCC, like the forum, are large files because of the volume of postings being delivered to your screen. Depending upon your connection speed, it may take longer at times to fully load.  Also note that the contest archive files are the largest of any CCC file because they contain a year’s worth of expired contests and may take a long time to load, again depending upon your connection speed.

If you have a serious connection issue one of the few things you can easily try to do is go to another popular site like “Google”, “Yahoo” or some other known major domain name.  If you find slowness accessing these other sites as well,  the problem most likely resides either in your computer or your own internet access provider.  Sometimes access providers like Comcast, AT&T, BellSouth, etc. may be experiencing heavy user loads at the very exact time you’re trying to access our site. One of the most simple solutions is to simply try again–in a few seconds and then in another minute or two.  It is not unusual for these ISP’s to experience momentary slowdowns where you feel like your connection is dead.  If the above retry doesn’t work, then reboot your computer as this is the second most simplistic solution and it may also solve your problem. 

On the other hand, if you find speedy access to these other sites and rebooting doesn’t do the trick, then access to our site may be slowed by our own web server provider.  Like your own personal ISP, access issues can be extremely temporary so try again.  If access seems particularly bad for long periods of time, please e-mail us.