There are a few reasons why your thumbnail may not be showing and I will discuss these later. But first, I need to introduce how this system works.

Thumbnails, at the moment, are produced by a third-party site and is a service that we pay for. As part of the service, thumbnails are generated when the blog is first accepted on Blotanical and then updated every fortnight. Every two weeks a spider trolls Blotanical looking for links to gardening blogs and then heading over to your site to take a snapshot of how your blog currently appears.

The first reason why your thumbnail may not have worked could be related to the server where your blog is hosted "hiccuping" as the snapshot is produced. Second, the server where the spider is hosted could have hiccuped in the process but most likely is the third reason that your blog's homepage is too large in size and doesn't load in time for the spider to cache the thumbnail.

In most cases where members have asked for an explanation of their lack of thumbnail it has always resulted in the size of their homepage - the location where the spider takes the snapshot. These sizes are usually greater than 1Mb - you can determine your page size by using this tool - http://websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/.

Your Page Size Is VERY Important

Apart from the obvious thumbnail issues, why should you care how large your site is?

Let me draw you an analogy. In this analogy we're going to assume that you are a shopkeeper and your blog is a shop.

Now, imagine someone is coming to visit your shop but when they do they notice the door is shut. You immediately notice them standing there and rush over to unlock it for them. The problem is that this door has multiple locks and takes you a minute or two to finally let your customer in. Now most customers will forgive that - once.

However, what if they returned the next day to find themselves in the very same predicament? They see you rushing over to unlock the door but they already know that the process is going to take some time before they can enter.

Now put yourself in their shoes. Would you be choosing to go back to that store on the third day, or even at all?

This is the very same thing that happens with most blogs - especially garden blogs. We like to show the world our photos so adorn our posts with as many as we can squeeze in. Then we try to add some music so that our visitors will enjoy the atmosphere while they peruse our articles. Plus, we like to keep it all happening on the one page so that our visitors don't have to navigate to other pages.

All these activities take time and slow down the process for our visitors and readers.

How can I reduce the size of my blog?

1. In most blogging platforms you are given a choice as to how many posts show on your homepage. The default, if available, is usually set at 20 posts. I would suggest this is reduced to between 3 to 5. By this one action you've already reduced your blog size by more than 75%.
2. Use compression on your images. Using photo imaging software such as Photoshop or Paintshop Pro will reduce the size of your images and compress them for the web meaning they will load much quicker. If you don't have access to them then this online site - http://www.resizeyourimage.com/ - will prove to be just as helpful.
3. If you still want people to view the original sized image then opt for putting a thumbnail in your post and link it to another page where the original can be viewed. This allows those who have the time to wait to see your original photo without annoying all your other visitors.
4. Better still, house them on Flickr so your visitors can go and view your gallery there.
5. Unless you want to convert ALL your visitors to RSS readers then I would suggest that you leave the autoplaying music off your blog. If you must have music then give your visitor the option to turn it on rather than wait until it's loaded so they can turn it off.

Size does matter - especially in relation to the web. The standard for most websites is that people judge them as worthwhile within the first 8 seconds. If yours hasn't even loaded within that time then you may be losing potential friends and visitors.