Speeding up site

  • MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)


    3 years, 11 months ago

    Hi all,

    I’ve been trying very hard to make this website faster. Faster for the visitor and faster for Google Pagespeed Insight.

    But I’m still not very happy with my pagespeed. Google pagespeed gives me a 90% A score on GTMetrix. Google page speed gives 74 on desktop and only 16 on mobile. It says:

    – Reduce server response times (TTFB) 1.68 s
    – Serve images in next-gen formats 0.24 s

    On the images I’m working, I’ve been trying it with some plugins but these pictures were not converted I guess. So we will manage them by hand.

    But then we have the TTFB which is very long I think. But I don’t know how they measure it; we don’t use a CDN because our site is mainly visited by customer from the Netherlands, where our site is hosted too. But I want to do ‘more’ to achieve a fast site, but I really don’t know what I can do. Maybe it’s high because of that Google measures from America?

    I’ve done:
    – Use plugin ‘EWWW Image Optimizer’ for beteer image compression
    – Installing and configuring W3 Total cache. But I’ve disabled it now, because of that it dramatically dropped my scores on pagespeed in Google pagespeed…. I can’t understand this…
    – Installed and configured autoptimze for optimizing CSS/JS and lazyloading of images and so on.

    Is there anyone with some tips about what I can do more and about the (in my opinion) real high score on TTFB?

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 18 total)
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  • stvcargill

    (@stvcargill)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Good Morning,

    I receive an A for PageSpeed and a A for YSlow score in GTMetrix but I also fail to get a good ‘Good’ google page speed score.

    My images are all optimized via BunnyCDN which helped with the GTMetrix results but I cannot seem to get a good google score no matter what I do.

    I am keen to find out if anyone has good advice for you that I could try also.

    Thanks

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by stvcargill.
    Sean

    (@sean-h)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    I would like to follow this thread, because while I get good GTmetrix scores, I get lousy mobile scores from Google Pagespeed, on all 6 of my sites, yet they’re hosted on Google Cloud Platform, so Google must not tell me about TTFB, it’s their own server!

    Dion

    (@diondesigns)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    A high TTFB on a WP site is typically due to one or more of the following:

    1) a “heavy” theme
    2) one or more “heavy” plugins
    3) too many active plugins
    4) a bad/inefficient server configuration

    Using “optimize” plugins to attempt to decrease TTFB will in fact make the problem worse. The effects of those plugins are reflected in asset loading times which occur after TTFB is calculated, so you must balance the decrease in asset loading times against the increase in TTFB. Also note that cache proxies such as CloudFlare can help with Pagespeed/GTMetrix scrores.

    Installing a cache plugin can reduce TTFB, but many of them require a “pro” (paid) version to do so.

    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Hi @diondesigns. Thank you for your reply. I’ve tried to deactivate the Shopper theme and took the default 2019 theme. That didn’t make a huge difference. So I can eliminate that one I think.

    But then we have 2, 3 and 4 left. I want to know more about the plugins; can I measure that effectively? I have (to) many plugins active I think; 31 pieces. But the client has many requirements.

    Also point 4 is an option. Also there is the question; how to measure that? Or do I just have to find out the problems with option 2 and 3 and then option 4 is just the one that will be the problem when 2 and 3 are eliminated?

    Dion

    (@diondesigns)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    If your client requires all those plugins, perhaps you should tell them that they must invest in larger/better hosting if they want a better TTFB. 31 plugins is a lot, but keep in mind that multiple plugins are usually available for the same application, and one may have better server performance. It’s worth your time to determine which of your plugins is “heaviest”, and then try to find replacements for those plugins…or to convince your client the plugin isn’t needed.

    Plugins are available that will give you information about server performance, and help you determine which themes/plugins are “heavy”. I’m biased since the one I’d recommend is my own, so I’ll just say there are quite a few in the repository. 🙂

    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    I’ve been testing some stuff but can’t find what I’m looking for. I’ve also installed/activated a plugin UsageDD (maybe you know that one a little?), but to be honoust it’s really not clear to me what I must expect now. I don’t see any numbers anywhere so it’s really unclear to me how to continue now.

    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    If there is anybody else who has some tips about plugin measurements or other stuff related to my issue I would like to here from them 🙂

    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Hi @diondesigns, I’ve installed a plugin UsageDD, but to be honoust it’s really not clear to me what I must expect now. I don’t see any numbers anywhere so it’s really unclear to me how to continue now. You have a tip?

    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    It seems that @diondesigns is not responding any more. Is there anybody who has some hints for me and @stvcargill and @sean-h?

    Sean

    (@sean-h)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    I have read recently that one of the reasons you can get low scores on mobile is because Google is apparently simulating the lowest possible or average mobile data connection speeds. When you next use GTMetrix, try using the different locations as well as the simulated speeds and connections on offer.

    But I would take these speed test results with a pinch of salt and not spend too much time worrying about it, especially if your desktop speeds are already good. It loads fast enough for me, but then I don’t live very far away from your host (I’m in Belgium). However, I am getting sporadic 500 errors when viewing your site. I don’t know anything about your host, so I can’t speak against them, except that things like TTFB can be drastically affected by an inferior host, although I don’t think that would be a good enough reason to switch hosts in your case, unless it was really really bad.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Sean.
    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Ok. So you say; don’t do anything and keep it this way?

    Sean

    (@sean-h)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    When your site loads, it loads fast enough, but it is also throwing a lot of 500 server errors. You might actually have a hosting problem.

    I managed to run a GTmetrix test on your site myself, after a 500 error. Not too bad, except you might want to also look at your leverage browser cache rules.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Sean.
    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Well if I can make the site a little faster I would like to do that. And when I can find 1 or 2 plugins that cause this I would like to eliminate them.

    I didn’t get a 500 error on my screen once… How to do you get them?

    Sean

    (@sean-h)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    By all means, remove plugins that you don’t need or that try do the same thing twice, like caching. That’s a very good place to start. I scored a good few milliseconds by removing unnecessary plugins. Also make sure ALL your plugins are current and updated. Anything not updated in more than 2 years, get rid of it.

    As far as the 500 error goes, it’s intermittent. I have no idea whats causing it because that is a server-side issue. It could be anything but only you or whoever has access to the server logs can see the possible cause. One theory is a possible plugin conflict.

    Thread Starter MiKeZZa

    (@mikezza)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Every plugin does something we need at this moment. And yes some do duplicate things, but gives best results in Google Speedrank…

    So I don’t know where to start. So that’s why I was hoping to have some test results about plugins that could tell me where to investigate some time and where not…

    For the 500 error; I want to figure that out, but where you see it? How can I simulate it?

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 18 total)
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