It is an endemic problem with later versions of Publisher (2002 and 2003).  The
gurus here will tell you some half-assed tricks to try, but the bottom line is
that the latest versions of Publisher are fatally flawed with respect to web
work.  You might consider going back to Publisher 2000; we are stuck in it here,
and not at all happy about it!  You may be interested to know that this issue is
the subject of class action litigation to be filed one of these days...maybe.

You will probably find that Pub 2000 always loads more quickly than Pub
2003, and is probably what you will want to use to maintain your website.
David Bartosik has written a number of articles about the differences and
how to at least improve the performance of Pub 2003 in this area. I would
suggest you read his articles to decide what you want to do starting here:

http://www.publishermvps.com/Default.aspx?tabid=29

and the various sections about Pub 2000 and 2003.

And though Pub 2000 is probably the better choice for your website, Pub 2003
has some advantages for print documents, so you might want to load both on
your computer. If so I would again refer you to David's response in this
newsgroup on the 22nd to Jim RE: Question on Installing Publisher. Jim was
having a similar problem to yours, and David gave a good answer as to how to
install both versions.

DavidF