• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Simplenet

WordPress Hosting in Europe

  • Web Hosting
    • Managed WordPress
    • Shared Hosting
  • Optimisation
  • Maintenance
  • Blog
  • Support
    • Knowledge Base
    • Submit Ticket
  • Client Area

Blog optimization – another ​case study

April 16, 2019 Leave a Comment

Aghiuta.com is a media monitoring and politics blog written by Florin Popescu. Here’s our WordPress optimization we did for this blog.

Before optimization

First page loading speed was 4.3 sec.

The homepage has 86 requests and 1.3 MB.

  • 14 javascripts – 505.6 k
  • 20 sites stylesheet – 41.1 k
  • 23 files – 601 k

JS

Facebook Connect JS has 174.4K and is loaded in 0.69 seconds. The Facebook Like Box can be inserted as a text widget by copying the iframe code from the Facebook Developers Like Box page and that gets rid of the JS file.

Gonzo theme includes a script.js file that has 101.3K. It includes several scripts such as:

  • fitvids
  • flexslider
  • jquery easing
  • tabber tabs
  • backstretch
  • prettyphoto lightbox
  • elastislide

Backstretch is used for the large background image, but at least four of the others are not used: flexslider, prettyphoto, elastislide, tabber tabs.

Fitvids make video embeds responsive, so it’s probably needed.

jQuery Easing makes some effect on click (the slide from the search form).

In addition, jQuery Easing (8.1 K) is loaded once more by the LayerSlider (26K) plugin which is not used anywhere.

I removed the unused scripts and file size has decreased from 101.3K to only 29K.

Sharing buttons JS files

The plugin that puts the share buttons on the website has a pretty big impact on the loading time:

  • Plus 1 – 25.8K
  • Google Api – 84.2K
  • Twitter – 84.5K
  • Social Bar – 1.8K

All this can be solved by using another plugin (Jetpack) that loads a single JS file of 35K for all the buttons.

jQuery can be loaded from Google Library instead of loading it from the server.

The Addfreestats JS give a 404 error. We recommend using Google Analytics.

CSS

There are too many CSS files (20), some loaded with @import which is not the best option for performance.

We have combined what was possible (sometimes combining js or css files throws errors) and we now have only 7 CSS files.

Images

Images can be better optimized for the web (same quality but less KB) and I think we can save at least 5% of each image.

On the first page, thumbnails are 166x166px in size but the loaded pictures are larger, 300x300px.

The images should be loaded at 166x166px.

WordPress creates too many thumbnails:

  • 960×677
  • 150×105
  • 300×211
  • 550×387
  • 700×426
  • 300×300
  • 50×50
  • 290×166
  • 620×310
  • 620×350
  • 186×186
  • 620×220

The site only needs:

  • 166×166 – first page thumbnails
  • 50×50 – thumbnails for sidebar
  • 134×77 – thumbnails for related posts
  • 290×166 – thumbnail for category archive

The remaining dimensions are useless and occupy space on the server. We can delete them and eliminate the unnecessary code from the theme that tells WordPress to make those thumbs.

We implemented Lazy Load so only the images at the top of the page (above the fold) are loaded which gives a major improvement in perceived speed.

After optimization

After removing unnecessary code from JS files, combined CSS files, correct configuration and implementation of page cache and database cache the website now makes 48 requests and has 634,5K.

First page loading speed: 1.47 seconds.

We achieved a performance improvement of around 60%.

We can optimize further but that would mean removing some elements that provide specific functionality desired by the owner so we stopped here.

Filed Under: Case studies

Looking for WordPress Hosting?

We are WordPress experts, and since 2012 we’ve been helping website owners grow their online businesses, from affordable solutions for beginners to advanced solutions for high-traffic online stores, newspapers and blogs.

See plans

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

Simplenet

We help online entrepreneurs have faster and more scalable WordPress sites, save money and accelerate the growth of their online business.

  • WordPress
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • GitHub

Recent blog posts

Why and How to Learn MySQL as a WordPress Developer

May 19, 2022

Web 3.0 – Expectations, Truths, and Myths

March 31, 2022

The Beginner’s Guide to Headless WordPress

January 18, 2022

Prepare Your SEO Strategy for 2022 – A Recap of Key Updates in 2021

November 18, 2021

10 Worth Reading Newsletters for Developers

October 5, 2021

Resouces

  • Learn WordPress
  • WordPress Performance
  • Case Studies
  • Genesis Framework Child Themes
  • Our Blog
  • Knowledge Base

Legal info

  • Terms & conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Data processing agreement
  • Acceptable use policy
  • Domain name agreement

Copyright © 2022 · Simplenet Hosting srl · All Rights Reserved