Very slow start

[ichauhan]

Our small college site is loading very slow and I am not able to figure out the reason. I will appreciate some help in identifying the problem. Thank you.

www.helenefuld.edu

[GreenGecko]

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/151127_G1_17XN/ ( Dulles and New York aren’t too far apart are they? )

There are 2 things to look at.

1. Infrastructure. The 3 second TTFB identifies there’s a problem with this. As well as identifying what the problem is ( database, php and / or web server ), you probably just want to throw loads of cache at everything, especially the database and ensure PHP is using an opcode cache.

2. Size. At 2.5MB the front page is a bit porky. Looking at the ‘cable’ connection results above, there are 110+ files as well, and every one of these incurs a latency overhead that just adds up. A pretty high one at 100ms too! You’re just talking about the laws of Physics here, so nothing really mystical here.

Once you’ve got that running well, add in a front end cache - WordPress has plenty to choose from. You can use these not only to cache stuff, but to combine resources like css and js files, which ( they don’t always just work mind! ) will lower the file count, and so reduce the wasted time just going back and forth to the site.

If you get really adventurous, you might want to look at enabling SPDY or HTTP2 on your side, which changes the way in which the browser connections are used, and for the better! Also, you could do with improving your https: configuration… ssllabs.com is a great resource to help you there.

[avalanch]

Combining JS & CSS requests would be one great step. I would consider something like this.

Better WordPress Minify

Allows you to combine and minify your CSS and JS files to improve page load time. This plugin uses the PHP library Minify and relies on WordPress’s enqueueing system rather than the output buffer, which respects the order of CSS and JS files as well as their dependencies. BWP Minify is very customizable and easy to use.

[GreenGecko]

Don’t get hung up on minification. When you are compressing the resource delivery - as you are - it makes almost no difference to the size of the file as delivered, and it’s debatable as to whether this extra step may actually slow stuff down.

[avalanch]

@GreenGecko

Don’t get hung up on minification. When you are compressing the resource delivery - as you are - it makes almost no difference to the size of the file as delivered, and it’s debatable as to whether this extra step may actually slow stuff down.

[size=medium]Allows you to combine[/size], into far fewer requests, that’s what I was driving at. Anyways, there’s no reason to use the minifcation of that or any mod when you can just use mod_deflate.

[ichauhan]

@GreenGecko

WebPageTest Test - Running web page performance and optimization tests... ( Dulles and New York aren’t too far apart are they? )

There are 2 things to look at.

1. Infrastructure. The 3 second TTFB identifies there’s a problem with this. As well as identifying what the problem is ( database, php and / or web server ), you probably just want to throw loads of cache at everything, especially the database and ensure PHP is using an opcode cache.

2. Size. At 2.5MB the front page is a bit porky. Looking at the ‘cable’ connection results above, there are 110+ files as well, and every one of these incurs a latency overhead that just adds up. A pretty high one at 100ms too! You’re just talking about the laws of Physics here, so nothing really mystical here.

Once you’ve got that running well, add in a front end cache - WordPress has plenty to choose from. You can use these not only to cache stuff, but to combine resources like css and js files, which ( they don’t always just work mind! ) will lower the file count, and so reduce the wasted time just going back and forth to the site.

If you get really adventurous, you might want to look at enabling SPDY or HTTP2 on your side, which changes the way in which the browser connections are used, and for the better! Also, you could do with improving your https: configuration… ssllabs.com is a great resource to help you there.

Thank you so much.