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U.S. consumers will immediately leave websites that offer a slow performance, according to an independent survey by Gomez.

Gomez is the Web performance division of Compuware that provides a solution for optimizing the performance, availability and quality of Web and mobile applications.

The survey, titled "When Seconds Count," involved 1,004 Web and mobile users. It was conducted for Gomez by Equation Research.

An end-user perspective of the potential impact of Net Neutrality regulations and the significance of speed for all web businesses is offered by the findings of the independent survey.

The survey findings reveal that speed makes a difference when it comes to accessing a website. 32 percent of consumers will begin to leave slow websites between one and five seconds. 84 percent are only willing to try a slow performing website a few times before giving up, 39 percent say speed is more important than functionality for most websites, while only one in five rank greater site functionality as more important.

According the findings, speed also makes a difference when it comes to accessing a mobile site. One-third of all web users are also using a mobile device to access the Internet, and more than half of mobile users expect websites to load as fast, almost as fast or faster on their mobile phone compared to the computer they utilize at home.

The survey also shows that slow load times are common and users feel frustrated with poor performance. 67 percent of users encounter a slow performing website a few times a week or more. 37 percent said they would not return to a slow site, and 27 percent would probably go to a competitor's site. Slow website load times and poor formatting are the top two issues encountered by mobile web users.

The survey findings also uncovered that web users have visited sites and have been unable to accomplish their tasks. Over 80 percent say that they haven’t been able to accomplish their tasks, while 47 percent say that they have often left sites where they couldn't finish their tasks in the past three months.