Nine out of 10 people switch to a competitor if a web site fails to load, according to new research.

Over half (53 per cent) of those surveyed will only wait for up to 30 seconds for a web site to load before giving up and trying elsewhere, says research by vendor 1&1 Internet.

'As users become more dismissive of slower sites, SMEs must ensure their market has instant access to their products and services,' said Andreas Gauger, chief executive of 1&1 Internet.

Upon finding an error message on a business’s web site, some 63 per cent of consumers would automatically source another site, with only four per cent are willing to report the error to the business in question, so a business might not know it was losing customers.

Some 69 per cent of those surveyed says when a web site is slow or fails to load, they conclude that poor web hosting is the cause rather than their own bandwidth.

Men are more likely to form a negative impression of a business based on a slow web site (88 per cent compared to 84 per cent of women), and are more inclined to switch to a competitor if they are experiencing problems with a business’s web site (67 per cent compared to 60 per cent of women).

More women than men will return to a slow or frozen web site later on in the day (33 per cent of women compared to 25 per cent of men). However, women are more likely to experience instantaneous ‘web rage’ and complain about the web site to a colleague or friend.

The survey also found 24 per cent of people were turned off by domain names which are hard-to-remember.