Tips to increase your sites speed.

webcoaster · Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 75

Ok let's see first the results then the method.

Prior to any adjustments the size was 256715 bytes
After adjustments the new size is from 86807 bytes < - > 92435 bytes.

The range in size is do to the images being pulled from rss feeds some are larger and I have no control over them at the moment but I'm working on it.

Download Times* before the fix
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 205.37 seconds
28.8K 105.88 seconds
33.6K 91.67 seconds
56K 57.56 seconds
ISDN 128K 22.07 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 7.76 seconds

Download Times* after the fix
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 73.83 seconds
28.8K 40.32 seconds
33.6K 35.53 seconds
56K 24.04 seconds
ISDN 128K 12.08 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 7.26 seconds

So what did I do?

Here's the items

1. HTTP compression, otherwise called content encoding using gzip
2. Compressed css and javascripts
3. Then gzip my CSS

Since each site is hosted on so many different servers I'm only going to provide the links to get you started and provide on going help if need.

Here are some links to get you started

1. http://betterexplained.com/articles/speed-up-your-javas
cript-load-time/

2. http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/weblog/web-development/c
ss/the-definitive-css-gzip-method

3. http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/css-opti
mization/

And tested from
1. http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

I put the .htaccess and the gzip-css.php files in the below areas:

1. /components/com_news_portal
2. Templates css location

Hope this helps you if you have any questions feel free to ask.

- Cheers

merav · Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 3:10 pm Post subject:

Good post, I made it a sticky. Wink

lafrance · Joined: 01 Jan 1970 Posts: 199

Thank You webcoaster for this informations.It sure will help in the future.
Now I really believed this communities is as great as joomla.org One helping others Kudo's buds You show my faith in others. Smile

Pierre
FYI I know this part is off topic would speed be faster if I were to use mysql from my second server instead of were Joomla reside? Or would Joomla bark if path is on server 2?
Point have 2 dedicated servers 1 I use for my domains and free hosting other to run a app.

webcoaster · Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 75

That's a good question, and it's not uncommon to have 1 or 2 MySQL servers running on different machines esp for redundant servers.

I'm not sure if you'll see a big improvement unless your current machine is overloaded or a bit of a workhorse, if it is then I think you would see the improvement.

Review your database tables, and see if they need to be repaired or optomise. This will make your pages load a lot faster.

"Publishing fewer modules or having fewer features enabled decreases the number of database inquires and reduces the amount of php code that must be processed for any given web page"

Here's a couple of articles that might help, take a close look at the cache section and the software versions.

I myself pay close attention to items 3-7 in the below article

http://help.joomla.org/component/option,com_easyfaq/tas
k,view/id,14/Itemid,268/

A lot of good in use information here.
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,50278.0.html

- Cheers

webcoaster · Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 75

A few tips from Hackwar over at Joomla forums::

General:
Watch out for errors in your template. When you reference a file like arrow.gif and this file is non-existent, the performance of your server will drop immensly.

Joomla specific:
If your server has performance problems, don't enable gzip. This is meant to reduce the usage of bandwith, not the load on your server. The server has to encode all the files in order to send them, which only puts additional load on your page.

If you encounter serious problems and you have SEF enabled, disable it. It's often the source for performance problems

Probably most important of all: Keep your Joomla! version up-to-date!

I forgot to point out the performance problems that Hackwar mentioned on servers that already have issues. But then again fixing your site to load better on a slow server is kinda like <b>" Washing your feet with your socks on..! " </b>

-Cheers

lafrance · Joined: 01 Jan 1970 Posts: 199

I was just about to backup mysql and all data and folder on my site,Should of done it earlier as both hard drive die at same time Sad

Lesson learn back up back up.
Now only if there was a good plugin to backup mysql and joomla.

Paradise · Joined: 01 Jan 1970 Posts: 22

Sh...,

i tried the .htaccess method in components/com_news_portal/ and it messed up News portal.

Than i put

webcoaster · Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 75

can you post both of the files or the entire code for the .htaccess and the php file

my .htaccess file for this looks like this

Paradise · Joined: 01 Jan 1970 Posts: 22

The problem is that after changing back everything NewsPortal dont work anymore. All the settings in the backend are ignored.

So you changed nothing in the NewsPortal files.
I did put the stuff you have in gzip-css.php in the top of news.css and renamed it do news.php. I also changed @import url in news_portal.php to news.php.

EDIT:
Found the error. news_portal.html.php was still looking for news.PHP.

Ok, you put it everywhere. But what is scaring me is:

Paradise · Joined: 01 Jan 1970 Posts: 22

Ok, gzip-css works. Shrunk my news.css from 61kb to 6kb Shocked

But still all the settings in the backend of NP are ignored.

Maybe some chmod think, because of my playing around? Do the NP files need some special rights?

webcoaster · Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 75

Your web server should own them what's your os and do you own the server how much control do you have as a admin.

I also put both files in all my css dirs that joomal uses including any module dirs so in my case below is where I put the two files .htaccess and gzip-css.php

Paradise · Joined: 01 Jan 1970 Posts: 22

This chmod thing in joomla bothers me. Everytime i wanna do something with FileZille, i have first go to joomlaXplorer. In Xplorer i changed the rights, downloaded them with FileZilla and put them back.

Do you mean the apache log?

The most things work now, but for example Zone Name "Border color" in featured sections dont work.

webcoaster · Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 75

Actual the error_log for apache should be in the same dir as the apache log, try to keep your eye on that it can really give you some details on items not working right.

As far as you other item, I would assume that it might be iJoomla related if everything else is working fine.

So how much did this improve your sites load time and overall performance.

- Cheers

Recent Usability Tests