Increasing website speed

[JoshMiles]

I am new to website development and one factor which has been repeated time and again is making the website light. This implies that the website should load quickly.

I would really appreciate if someone could brief me about the factors which should be looked into here.

[CaptainSessa]

I'll give it a shot:

1.) Don't use too many images and keep them on small size (around 20 kb).

2.) Load as few data from and save to as little data to a SQL database as possible.

3.) Optimize PHP code (especially some heavy and crappy written loops).

4.) Don't use too many CSS sheets, cause each loaded css file is a separate request.

5.) If you have a good webserver, try the increased use of AJAX, to load and reload parts of your page dynamically and don't render the whole content after every click!

Hope this helped ;)

[JoshMiles]

I'll give it a shot:

1.) Don't use too many images and keep them on small size (around 20 kb).

2.) Load as few data from and save to as little data to a SQL database as possible.

3.) Optimize PHP code (especially some heavy and crappy written loops).

4.) Don't use too many CSS sheets, cause each loaded css file is a separate request.

5.) If you have a good webserver, try the increased use of AJAX, to load and reload parts of your page dynamically and don't render the whole content after every click!

Hope this helped ;)

Thanks a lot for the response CaptainSessa. After reading the poinst mentioned by you. I did a deep reading and came across this resource http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html, this is nice and includes more details points.






It would be better us WordPress and design should lite. Also site should hosting on a good hosting site.

Thanks a lot for the suggestion. But it is not possible to use WordPress all the time. We do need to keep in mind the website theme and purpose, let say it is a E-commerce website then best go would be Magneto. there we can't always use WordPress though I agree it is best......

[touch_the_sky1]

Plus caching, combine all external js / css into 1 file, minify, etc.

Actually, test your site with Google Page Speed (http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/) and the results will give you some clues.

Also, check out (and build your sites with) html5 boilerplate (http://html5boilerplate.com/) - shed loads of good practice and if you wanna go further -> it comes with ant build script optimising the hell out of your website.

Last but not least - don't host your site on a soviet calculator on some £0.01 per year 'unlimited' bandwith package ;)

[pedro93]

Hi Josh,

I've nothing much too say on this thread but I wouldn't recommenend Magento unless you have extremely good servers.

Magento is a brilliant and probably the best e-commerce solution however it is very resource hungary and requires a lot of server CPU. Check your host to see if your on a shared server and the spec on it :)

OpenCart is what I tend to use, it doesn't have as many features (but you can install extensions) however it is very lightweight and fast.

WordPress is really good, stick to that ;)

[touch_the_sky1]

Don't spam pedro93, op did not ask about ecomm package or what CMS do we prefer.

Magento is miles away from being brilliant in any way, and it's even further from a shadow of being best e-comm solution - do you work for them or what? It's big, but decent at it's best

I've nothing much too say on this thread
Clearly.

[miniCarl]

Take a look at http://gtmetrix.com

[selina]

Wassup Statistics and Firestats Plugin For WordPress are two Tools which i am aware.

[eUKhost]

I believe that the web hosting servers are the reason why the website loads very slowly. The servers where your website is hosted might be of low configuration or it may be possible that your website is hosted on a shared hosting platform. Secondly, it is better to opt for a CDN which will help you to deliver all of your website graphics much quickly.

[Clarkjackson]

I'll give it a shot:

1.) Don't use too many images and keep them on small size (around 20 kb).

2.) Load as few data from and save to as little data to a SQL database as possible.

3.) Optimize PHP code (especially some heavy and crappy written loops).

4.) Don't use too many CSS sheets, cause each loaded css file is a separate request.

5.) If you have a good webserver, try the increased use of AJAX, to load and reload parts of your page dynamically and don't render the whole content after every click!

Hope this helped ;)

hmm, look at these tips and also ask you web developer to do this with "Google speed tool" it will help you developer to get idea about how to reduce extra and unnecessary things from the site

[mtrick]

-Get A Fast & Less-Loaded Web Server otherwise if you've a database and/or using dynamic files (like asp, asp.net, php, ruby etc.) server over load can slow the performance.
2- Use GIF (make sure you use a small color pallette), JPG (Decrease the High quality to normal of a JPG image before saving) & PNG (use when you need transparent images .
3-Use XHTML because tables are rendered slower than DIVs by browsers.
4-Compress your CSS file try not to repeat common properties in objects.
5-Compress JavaScript files. include inside those pages where you need .
6- Use HTTP Compression and Better Coding also can improve speed performance.

[ssystems]

3-Use XHTML because tables are rendered slower than DIVs by browsers.

Even on html. In general avoid table at all except when necessary. Take note that widths of cells are a computed value on most if not all rendering engines and the bigger the table the bigger the count of cells it have to compute.

Though there are lots of ways to optimize your application it is always imperative to identify the actual bottleneck. It doesn't make sense to optimize servers, minify stylesheets etc if the bottleneck was a poorly implemented stored proc.

11. (I'll just start here to lazy to count the actual number). Normalize your database
12. Analyze your queries/stored proc/triggers etc based on what database you are using e.g. "Explain" for MySQL and Execution Plan analysis for MSSQL
13. Measure the amount of data you are loading, if your "plain html" is somewhere around 500K. You do the math for how long it would be transmitted back to the end user based on download time + the rendering speed.
14. Take note that most servers (if not modified) will allow 10 concurrent request for a given session. If you have 1000 files on a single page you do the math again.
15. Decrease the data posted and decrease the data retrieved. Use partial posts on your pages if necessary. It doesn't make sense to load the entire 500k page of data when you are just gonna post 20 bytes and the change would from the original page would only be 100bytes.

<<<< To tired to type now. Hehehehe

[spufi]

3-Use XHTML because tables are rendered slower than DIVs by browsers.

This is as logical as telling somebody they need to be a Bears fan because oranges are awesome. Use tables for tabular data and not for layouts. If you need block level markup, use <div> tags were appropriate.

[WolfShade]

This is as logical as telling somebody they need to be a Bears fan because oranges are awesome.
I disagree. It plainly states that tables should be avoided whenever possible because they load slower than DIVs. Quite logical and to the point.

It is my understanding that tables load twice - once for layout, then again for content.

I try my best to stick with table-less development, but I do use tables whenever I develop an online form - the formatting is just easier, for that.

Just my $0.02 worth.

[dnsbl]

Optimize your site with GZIP compression

[spufi]

I disagree. It plainly states that tables should be avoided whenever possible because they load slower than DIVs. Quite logical and to the point.

It is my understanding that tables load twice - once for layout, then again for content.

I try my best to stick with table-less development, but I do use tables whenever I develop an online form - the formatting is just easier, for that.

Just my $0.02 worth.

You missed the part where using XHTML and tables are completely unrelated.