Can I make my ajax any faster?

[briercan]

If yes, then how?
Here's the page:
http://thisplaceiknow.com/search/

The page initially pulls the data from a sql server using coldfusion, and populates the map. When you enter any search terms or change any of the options, it calls an ajax request for an xml file to populate the list of places and add points to the map. It just seems slow, and I haven't been able to make it any quicker. Any suggestions would help. Thanks.

[jtrelfa]

There are a couple of things that can make it "faster"

1. Optimize your server-side code to ensure that you aren't making unnecessary round trips to the database. For example, if the user checked the "wifi" box without changing the other parameters, why not have the result set cached rather than re-query?
2. You're cookie size can impact performance: http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/03/01/p...search-part-3/
3. If you're using shared hosting, you can't always guarantee the speed of your connection. Consider dedicated hosting

The only other suggestion is to look for places where you can cache information to minimize trips to the server and/or the database.

[rmullins]

Cool site briercan. Good idea too, first time i have seen something like this implemented.