Google recently released an addon called Google Page Speed for firefox users which allows you to measure page load times and gives detailed report of various areas in your blog which can be optimized.
How much decrease is possible?
As evident from the above graph for Programming Kid, my page load times were on the rise and as I was adding plugins and images to the blog, after I analysed it with Google Webmasters ->Labs->Performance I found that it took around 20 secs for all elements in the page to load.
I downloaded Google Page Speed and begain working on key areas which I thought were responsible for the increased load times and then witnessed a steady steep fall in the load times from 20 secs to 5 secs!
That’s a reduction of 75% in page load times.
What information is provided by Google Page Speed
Using Page Speed users can check CSS loadtimes, JS scripts and how much time it takes for the web page to load after all the images have loaded. It also identifies DNS redirects and external request made to different servers so that they can be reduced.
It also gives the minified versions of CSS and JavaScripts which should replace the original contents. Minified versions are essentially scripts without any white-spaces and comments. From a total of 32KB of CSS styling I was able to Minify it to 28KB. Its not much but considering that there are plenty of such scripts in the form of plugins, addons, Java Script these reductions mean a lot when applied to all such files.
Things to Remove from Blog
In my opinion, here is a list of things which most of use use in a Blog, although these are not necessary we use it for various reasons ranging from aesthetics, user navigation, social bookmarking, widgets to provide additional functionality.
1.Background Image
One should try and use a solid background colour instead of a PNG image, I saved 95KB by removing the background.
2.Google Friend Connect Widgets
I saved 32KB and some external DNS lookup and response times by removing the Java Script code, it depends if you wish to keep it but I chose to remove it as it was taking close to 1 sec in response time and DNS lookups.
3.Facebook Fan Page Widget
Similar to the above Google Friend Connect widget, the Facebook widget also increased DNS lookup and response time.
4.Social Bookmarking, Sharing Plugins
Plugins added to the blog like Sexy Bookmarks may look pretty but they contain various images, extra CSS and JS code that gets loaded in every post and adds considerably to increasing page load times.
Note : I’d suggest you to use manual text links instead of the above interactive but bandwidth hungry elements. Using manual links to Social Bookmarking sites i saved some 40KB and a few external DNS lookups.
You may also have a look at 5 Awesome WordPress Plugins You should install
How many of you gave this a try? Were you satisfied with the results . We’d love to hear your experiments. If you have any other method please feel free to share it as a comment below.
- Speed Up your WordPress Website using Compression in 5 minutes
- What to do when your blog gets injected with a malicious script, worm and infects WordPress
- 5 Awesome WordPress Plugins You Need to Install Now
- [Solution] The page isn’t redirecting properly
- Is your Blog ready to take on huge traffic spikes ? [Guide]
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I have been looking for some information about Wordpress and found your blog after some research. You have some good information that has helped me a lot in what I could do with Wordpress.
There are so many options I will try a few new ideas from what I learnt from your blog and see what happens.
Glad to know you that Programming Kid has helped you John. Welcome to the community.
Really helpful , I know my social bookmarking plugin makes my blog ugly while loading. so now I am in the search of just another bookmarking plugin for me.
I’d suggest you to use text links instead of a plugin. As you can customize the looks and have complete control over the nature of Social Bookmarking options you want your readers to have.
You can add a CSS style to them and make them look fabulous without ay plugin. I created the Promote and Share thing at Programming Kid with just some PHP and little CSS without any plugin
Google Page speed also helped me reduce my page load significantly. Wordpress users cannot stay without the great plugins that are available which unfortunately increase the page load time. Images are one of the main culprits, especially the images that most of the Wordpress themes use in their backgrounds. Perhaps it is time to go back to having minimalistic websites providing better content than visual appeal.
That’s so true Kevin, WordPress without plugins is very bare. Plugins enrich the functionality and visual appeal both but at the cost of page load times by increasing overheads. Google is trying to enforce the only-essential-content concept here by using Page Speed, and there are rumors that the next Page Rank update will include Page Speed results too!
There are few points missing here.
.
1) background image doesn’t affect the speed much until and unless it is very large. Use small image (4kb,5kb) image and u r good to go.
2) One best solution is to optimize your css. It helps a lot. Remove unnecessary styles or use short hands whenever possible.
3) Reduce number of css style sheet. If possible merge them into one.
4) Reduce the HTTP calls. I suggest you to use css styles instead of js whenever possible. CSS sprite is very good alternative. Have a look at this article to find css alternatives of js http://webanthology.net/23-pure-css-effectssolutions-to-make-javascript-angry/2009/11/26/
5)Reduce the number of plugins. Use related posts hack, recent posts hack, random posts hack, popular posts hack instead of plugins.
6) Reduce the usage of JS as far as possible.
7) Do not use images hosted on other websites, instead of that load it to theme/images directory and call it. I was dumb initially when I used to call images hosted on imageshack.us website.
You can include my points in the post if you want
I did remove sexy bookmark plugin and it helped me lot to reduce the load time. Thank you for the insight. I am also working on my theme which uses all the above hacks. I’ve also used SEO optimization so you do not need to add any SEO plugin (but I still prefer to use it as it gives more flexibility).
Thanks for the brilliant ideas Ricky. I would surely include some of your points in the post.
Sexy Bookmark plugin looks good but its a bit heavy so you are good without it. Thanks for confirming the same.
We can also remove unnecessary PHP Executions and DB access to make our wp blog faster.
Traditionally, i have used Firebug with Yahoo’s Y!Slow add-on to do this kind of performance tuning on a website…
Vaibhav, Google PageSpeed is an addon to Firebug. I have Yahoo’s!Y-Slow installed and I use PageSpeed in combination with it. Makes for a nice combination