Patent ID: 8745507

Claim:
A method of processing web page requests, the method comprising: responsive to detecting, by a web server, a client request for a web page containing a preloadable object, initiating serving the web page and downloading the object to the client; estimating a download interval for the object wherein the download interval indicates a time interval required to complete the downloading of the object; before the serving of the web page completes, invoking a preloader application to perform operations including: selecting a preloader message from a set of available messages based at least in part on: an estimate of a time required to serve the web page to the client in response to the client request; demographic information associated with the client; subject matter with which the requested web page is concerned; a time of day; and a day of the week; and displaying the preloader message with an indication of a progress of the downloading of the object wherein at least a part of the preloader message is unrelated to a progress state of the downloading of the object; monitoring for completion of the downloading; and responsive to detecting completion of the preloader message prior to completion of the downloading, selecting and displaying an additional message; and responsive to detecting completion of the downloading prior to completion of the preloader message, terminating the displaying of the preloader message.