Hi, Karen:
I would try posting your question on the BytesForAll Support Forum. That’s the official support forum for Montezuma, and you are probably more likely to find someone who’s had experience with using W3 Total Cache and Montezuma. From this thread, it looks like some have used W3 Total Cache successfully. It’s hard for me to really comment on the subject because I don’t use any sort of caching on my sites, since their subject matter is unique enough that they appear at the top of just about any search related to them.
Hi CrouchingBruin ~~~ “this thread” is very interesting. The results for W3 are so vastly different. It may or may not be important, but the person with the best results also seems to grasp English better. I used to be like that, but now… I do wonder if the problem is that my “grasp” is causing me to do something wrong.
BytesForAll, basically that’s where I found your Lady Eagles site. That’s how I knew I could get a yellow background. Mostly, though, the answers there seem directed at people with more familiarity with tech. Of the posts I read, most were above my level of comprehension…
Maybe if I figure out how to phrase the question there, I can get a reply that I can follow… I do think that in many cases how a question is asked makes a difference in how the question is answered…
I mean, it looks as if people are improving their speed dramatically by knowing a little more tech than I know…
thank you a lot for the references.
Karen
CrouchingBruin… do you think I could have been hacked?
… do you think I could have been hacked?
I don’t think it’s a hack. Can you try disabling JetPack to see if it makes a difference?
Hi CrouchingBruin ~~ When I disabled JetPack it made my site load a lot more slowly. iPage support said the problem didn’t exist. But friends on FB saw it when I asked them to check. I don’t know if it’s still happening because I couldn’t see it. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have known. I REALLY APPRECIATE your help.
Karen
CrouchingBruin ~ The caching thing is a bit baffling to me. You don’t use it because your sites automatically appear at the top of search results… What confuses me is that the caching things are supposed to make sites load more quickly. So they are mainly “advertised” as elements that make a site more user friendly. I can’t imagine that you don’t have user friendly sites, so I’m unclear why the caching things say that their main purpose is speed for a user friendly site…
My obsession with Google has dimmed. Now my main interest is making my site user friendly.
Years ago I used to understand things so easily. It was as if things were always Clear, with very little effort. Now… not so much. When I took the SATs a kazillion years ago I was in teh 98th percentile nationally for comprehension. Except in maths, where I was in the 22nd percentile.
So is website stuff so much like maths that I can’t get it??? do you think??? Or, is it mainly the brain injury which makes comprehension so much harder… I feel as if the fact my thinking has been slowed by over half, that I just can’t “get up to speed” when I want to follow directions. Sigh. I guess I should just be happy that for most of my life I didn’t have to plod through things…
Hi CrouchingBruin, an iPage phone tech disabled all plugins and it still was smiley face… so he says it’s not a plugin…
Hi CrouchingBruin ~
Question ~ (obviously… sorry
I’m looking for a plugin to use instead of W3.
One CDN plugin says
Combines Multiple JavaScript/CSS Files Into Single Static Files – Intelligently analyzes and combines multiple JavaScript/CSS files on your web page into single static files, drastically reducing your web page size and connections per page.
Externalizes Large Inline Blocks Of JavaScript/CSS – Automatically Externalizes large inline JavaScript/CSS blocks on your web page to take advantage of optimization and compression and further reduce the page size.
Okay, so my question is, I may have misunderstood you, but I thought the whole idea was to make more things “inline” rather than not. Did I misunderstand that?
Hi Again, CrouchingBruin ~
I sure wish I had an understanding of websites that was a little closer to yours… There’s just so much I don’t understand.
I Tweeted about the W3 problem to W3… and a very nice man replied. He c.c.ed to the man whose name is associated with the plugin. But overall, I don’t quite understand. And, that’s on two levels. I can see that I’m probably not using plugins in exactly the right way to get the speed I want, but at the same time, the cost of professional help is rather high. Or, it would make so much difference that the cost would become far less significant than the results.
I think this is more of an issue for me, when I’m up against so many sites about vitamin B12 that are most likely well funded. My information can make a lot of difference, but it’s not mainstream. So, in many cases you can probably google for answers and get 4 sites that say one thing, and then my site which talks about experience and research… I try to write in a way that most people will understand, that’s a plus. But at the same time it may cast doubt about accuracy or truth in what I say, because it’s not exactly like the “official” sites.
Dilemma.
When I look at what W3 and W3 Pro offer, it’s mostly way over my head. So, it’s a bit like taking it on faith, like back when I was in Catholic grade school. And some of that… boy, did my perspective change over the years.
What does seem to be fairly clear, is that even if I pay a W3 professional to set up my W3, it will have 60% locked potential unless I buy Pro.
Any advice on what you would do?
Hi CrouchingBruin ~ Well, I bit the bullet and bought W3 Pro and paid to have an experienced person “tune” it for me.
Results: My scores dropped from 50s and mid 70s to 20s and 30s. I wish I could post a screen shot of my test scores with the red exclamation points.
I will wait a day to see if my visitor stats improve despite the scores…
If not, then I want my $249 back… Wonder how that will go…
Here are screen shots of my results, May 2, May 5, and May 7 when W3 Total Cache Pro configuration by a W3 Edge expert/employee was complete:
http://www.off-grid-insights.com/2014/05/07/w3-total-cache-fail/
Wow, that’s very interesting. You used one of the premier caching plugins and had it configured by an expert, and your response times were slower, without any other changes to your site. I would make sure to take a number of readings. It seems like there could be so many different variables that affect response time, like how much of a load there is on the server you’re using when you take the reading, that performance tuning can seem like a black art.
That’s a good idea, to take readings at different times of the day. I’ll do that tomorrow.
But, I’m SO disappointed. Google is giving me a “site health” warning, showing my site is off by about 40%… 3 stars instead of 5.
So, where do I get the Occult Book of Increasing Site Speed????
Karen
using GTMetrix I get a completely different score… Headache!!!
What does this mean (from GTMetrix) … Does it mean that all of them should have one “Vary: Accept-Encoding” header, for them as a group? or each of them should have that????
The following publicly cacheable, compressible resources should have a “Vary: Accept-Encoding” header:
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/A.tablepress-combined.min.css,qver=17.pagespeed.cf.Rk47kd8XiT.css
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/plugins/akismet/_inc/form.js,qver=3.0.0.pagespeed.jm.lXj6gCZAgJ.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/plugins/bns-add-widget/A.bnsaw-style.css,qver=0.7.pagespeed.cf.SpXsNpDSv6.css
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/subscriptions/A.subscriptions.css,qver=3.9.pagespeed.cf.nrvqURDCTd.css
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/widgets/A.widgets.css,qver=20121003.pagespeed.cf.IZ3EmcCFba.css
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/wpgroho.js,qver=3.9.pagespeed.jm.v3b7tilOSf.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/plugins/photo-dropper/interface/css/A.public.css,qver=3.9.pagespeed.cf.cri__cQtS8.css
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/themes/montezuma/javascript/smooth-menu.js,qver=3.9.pagespeed.jm.y_zc9B83WX.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/uploads/montezuma/A.style.css.pagespeed.cf.q6y-NTrH_I.css
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery-migrate.min.js,qver=1.2.1.pagespeed.jm.LVTOO3Z2GS.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js,qver=1.11.0.pagespeed.jm.QgSskpb_5Z.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/ui/jquery.ui.core.min.js,qver=1.10.4.pagespeed.jm.YqYrKw0HUk.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/ui/jquery.ui.effect.min.js,qver=1.10.4.pagespeed.jm.o_SFd2NN14.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.health-boundaries.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/ui/jquery.ui.widget.min.js,qver=1.10.4.pagespeed.jm.DRIbm-9-v3.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.health-boundaries.com/pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js.pagespeed.jm.B7VMoS3BOY.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.health-boundaries.com/s.gravatar.com/css/hovercard.css?ver=201419
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.health-boundaries.com/s.gravatar.com/css/services.css?ver=201419
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.health-boundaries.com/s.gravatar.com/js/gprofiles.js,qver=2014Mayaa.pagespeed.jm.d6R73TFd0U.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.health-boundaries.com/s0.wp.com/wp-content/js/devicepx-jetpack.js,qver=201419.pagespeed.ce._38GSuPULB.js
http://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.health-boundaries.com/stats.wordpress.com/e-201419.js.pagespeed.ce.t_fyQf1fOC.js
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/expansion_embed.js
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20140501/r20110914/abg.js
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/r20140501/r20140417/show_ads_impl.js
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/osd.js
http://www.health-boundaries.com/wp-content/uploads/montezuma/javascript.js?ver=3.9
I gather that my other Big Problem is images ~~ I keep compressing my images and the tests keep saying I should compress them… only GTMetrix says:
Specify image dimensions…The following image(s) are missing width and/or height attributes. ~~~ (Does that mean that if I choose images that ill fir on a mobile screen and put those dimensions in, that my site will load faster on all devices?)
[ No bumping please. ]
The W3 expert was really helpful. The problem was not W3, but a Free Photo Thing… once disabled the problem went away.
