<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Keeping one's website up and loading quickly is vitally important for any company, but for the 500 biggest companies in the world, poor website load times can be an especially costly proposition. For the largest companies, negative brand associations due to poor experiences from slow loading websites can ultimately cost millions of dollars.\nThat's why brands definitely don't want to be on the list of worst offenders when it comes to website loading times.  New Zealand-based web optimization company Aptimize just released its 2010 Website Performance Benchmarks whitepaper [PDF], which is based on the averages of the load times of all Fortune 500 companies' websites.\nBelow is an infographic depicting the worst transgressors. The size of the logo correlates to the slowness of their respective sites \u2014 the bigger the logo, the worse the user experience.  Surprisingly, some large consumer brands \u2014 including Nationwide auto insurance, CVS, Coors and DollarTree \u2014 are among the worst big company websites. Even Southwest, a company known for its social media savvy, didn't fare so well in the Aptimize survey.\n\n\nClick for Full Size Version\t\n\n\n\nFor more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/05/11/fortune-500-load-times/>