[ic] IC Website loading slow

[interchange-users@interchange.redhat.com (interchange-users@interchange.redhat.com)]

I have uploaded a static website to interchange and changed the menu from 
<a href="item.html"   to [area item] and I've noticed that once I had the 
pages changed and loaded on to my server running interchange the pages load 
about 25% slower than my static website running on the same server but not in 
Interchange.  anyone know how I could speed this up or what might cause this? 
 Is it normal for an Interchange environment to run slower than a normal 
static site?

thank you!