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Tips to Optimize my site?

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  • Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 9 months ago
    #205847
    • Chad M.'s Avatar
    • Chad M.
    • Jr. Rocketeer
    • Posts: 36
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    Re: Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 8 months ago
    • Site optimization is a potentially difficult thing and I'm certainly not an expert, but one thing I noticed is that there was -- for me -- a very long initial load-time where it seemed that the site wasn't coming up at all, as though the server was heavily loaded and simply not responding.

      I have no idea what you could do regarding that, but there are some areas of your site that could use some finessing--based on my use of Firebug's 'Net' tab and the 'YSlow' that came with my installation of Firebug. (Firebug is an extremely handy developer extension for Firefox. If you don't have Firebug, you can get it at www.getfirebug.com/ )

      Based on Firebug's 'Net' tab:
      • You have 10 separate CSS files, none of which are being Gzipped. Consolidating CSS files and using Gzip to compress your CSS files is generally a good idea. (Note that I'm still trying to figure out how to get my CSS Gzipped, so I'm not the best person to help with that right now.)
      • Your JavaScript files (.js) are also not being Gzipped.
      • Your home page is running around 330k, which isn't that bad but it could be better. (Compressing the CSS would help with this, as would compressing the JavaScript)

      Like I said, optimization is a potentially difficult thing and it's certainly something that I'm still very new at, but I figured a semi-helpful reply was better than the none you'd gotten so far. Again, I'd suggest taking a look at your CSS and JavaScript files and seeing what progress you can make with those, as well as looking at that inital, very slow load of your site.

      Is there anyone else out there that can offer more/better advice, or at least resources, for Jami?
    #208214

  • Re: Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 8 months ago
    • Hello Jami,

      It seems that the initial page load is extremely long. From my inspector it appears that the hangup is taking place right around the time it is loading the "jomcomment" and "xajax" portions of the site. Once those are retreived and loaded, the rest of the template loads immediately. You might try unpublishing each of your third party extensions one by one then doing a hard refresh of the home page until you identify which one is causing that long hang during the loading process. After which, there might be some ways to optimize or fine tune that extension so it loads quicker, or it might even be worth dropping it entirely if it is not critical to your site.

      Another item to look at would be the site validation. From the w3c validator there appears to be a good number of validation errors: validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2F...ctype=Inline&group=0

      A good number of these appear to be coming from the event calendar extension you are using. Validation errors can cause problems in browsers and contribute to longer loading times so they are worth addressing if possible.

      Aside from those major points, you can further optimize your site by enabling Joomla caching sitewide and for all your modules, if you haven't already. And utilizing server / php caching utilities if your server / hosting service allows for it.

      Also, be sure to remove all references to any images you aren't using from the CSS (such as extra typography you dont intend to use as, extra headers and style specific images for the other style variations built in to the template) as these will help reduce the size of the CSS files. You can also consolidate the css files, if you dont intend on changing the preset style, as Chad mentioned, such as moving the header.css items into the template_css.css file and then removing the references to it from the rt_head_includes.php.

      Hope that helps :)
    #208234
    • Terp's Avatar
    • Terp
    • Elite Rocketeer
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    Re: Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 8 months ago
    • May I ask who is hosting this site? I have found this figure to be very accurate, and I must say...I have NEVER seen so many sites on a server and can't believe my eyes. Surely there must be a mistake... :)

      33,237 other sites hosted on this server. Performance Systems International Inc perhaps? Talk about a misnomer.
    #208384

  • Re: Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 8 months ago
    • thanks for all the great feedback.. I will try your ideas and see how it works.
      the site is hosted by iPower.com ... geez.. I didnt realize there were so many on one server also.. that is crazy! changing hosts is a real pain so hopefully that won't have to happen.
    #209212

  • Re: Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 8 months ago
    #210516

  • Re: Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 8 months ago
    • hey thanks Carolyn!

      that first link has some great info there! and that analysis tool is what I've been using, too. I really like it.

      After trying most of the tips here I was able to reduce the load time so that the client noticed it without me mentioning it. (the Gzipping and cleaning up the CSS files). It still is loading slower than I would like so I'm going to try out the mootools.js tip offered at the link you gave.
    #210758

  • Re: Tips to Optimize my site?

    Posted 16 years 8 months ago
    • Thanks for saying what worked for you. I haven't done anything yet, I guess it feels too overwhelming. I just need to bite the bullet and do it, and now I know where I will start.
    #210761

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