Suggestions on why site is slow/how to speed up? - wordpress

I know the website is very image based, I have limited plugins as much as I can and compressed CSS and styling. It shouldn't be as slow as it is. Any reason why this or what I can do to speed it up? Thanks

in my opinion
1- you are using too much css and javascript
2- Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content
3- you should optimize your image
4- you can upgrade your server to faster server
5- Enable compression and browser caching
and .....
EDIT:
how improve above steps:
1- for better performance its better to keep page size under 600kbit usually it's because of theme or the plugin we use, then if you can, change your template to an optimize version and reduce your unnecessary plugins. on the other hand there are some features that can handle by just few codes, but we rather to install a new plugin so new plugins has its self javascript and css
2-put all your javascript codes on the footer befoter </body> (help), and create a javascript loader for your css, that insert your css on the head.(help) simple example of render-blocking
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Title</title>
<!-- do not insert css or javascript here -->
</head>
<body>
<!--
#################
contents
#################
-->
<script type="text/javascript" src="/dis/cssloader.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/dis/scripts.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
and your cssloader
//cssloader.js
var version = "?v1";
var cb = function() {
var styles = [
"/dist/custom1.min.css",
"/dist/custom1.min.css",
];
var h = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
for (var i = 0; i < styles.length; i++) {
var l = document.createElement('link');
l.rel = 'stylesheet';
l.href = styles[i]+version;
h.appendChild(l);
}
};
var raf = requestAnimationFrame || mozRequestAnimationFrame || webkitRequestAnimationFrame || msRequestAnimationFrame;
if (raf) raf(cb);
else window.addEventListener('load', cb);
3- optimizing image means to reduce your image scale as you can, and saved your images for web (if your are using photoshop it has an option to do this, it's obvious that it reduce your images quality )
4-sometime just some configuration on server , improve it's performance
5- if your are using apache, you should add some line of codes on your apache config so that comperssion and caching enable for it, you can do this by .htaccess too (help)(help)

This suffers from a grotesque amount of Javascript and CSS. Minifying them into a single file each or at least consistently using their minified versions will help, but at 7.1MB for a single page, including a 1.1MB image, you might consider that you're doing something fundamentally wrong regarding page design and use of images. Even on a fast desktop this is slow, and even with minified styles and scripts (and resized, not just 'optimized', images), on mobile it'll (still) be unusable.
Edit: That size is with ghostery enabled, so it's likely a bit on the low side, and those won't do anything to help your load time.

Related

Optimising CSS delivery according to Google

So I was running my site through Google's PageSpeed Insights and it told me that I could improve CSS delivery by delaying loading non-critical resources. In particular it referenced to the inclusion of font awesome:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.4.0/css/font-awesome.min.css">
I figured I could delay its load by simply putting it before the scripts before the closing body tag, like so:
...
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.4.0/css/font-awesome.min.css">
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/min/scripts.min.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
However! When taking a look at Google's documentation on delivery speed, I found two different solutions.
In my native language (Dutch; you can change the language of the documtnation in the right lower corner) the documentation states that I should place non-essential css below the closing html tag. This seems awefully odd to me. Wouldn't this complicate things when trying to access the file through JS? Why wouldn't you place it before the closing body tag?
...
</body>
</html>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="small.css">
However, in the English documentation things get more complicated and require JavaScript:
...
<script>
var cb = function() {
var l = document.createElement('link'); l.rel = 'stylesheet';
l.href = 'small.css';
var h = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]; h.parentNode.insertBefore(l, h);
};
var raf = requestAnimationFrame || mozRequestAnimationFrame ||
webkitRequestAnimationFrame || msRequestAnimationFrame;
if (raf) raf(cb);
else window.addEventListener('load', cb);
</script>
</body>
</html>
Why would JS required? Isn't that a bit over the top?
What is wrong with my approach? Why can't you load non-critical CSS before the closing body tag?
An external stylesheet will block rendering of the page until it has been fully loaded. Google is recommending to place the style that is needed for the initially visible (critical, above the fold) part of the document inside <style> tags in the head (the only place where you can define non-inline style) to avoid this render-blocking. The non-critical style (what you don't directly see when you land on the page) is added as an external stylesheet inside the head after the HTML has been read. This way it's rendered first and only then will all other styles be loaded. All for the sake of showing the visitor the content as quickly as possible and not letting her/him wait any longer than necessary.
It think for most cases it is over the top what Google is recommending and they're just being freaky about a few milliseconds - their approach only makes sense somewhat if the CSS is huge. But I think it's hard, if not near impossible, to maintain with the current tools available. What for example if it is a returning visitor that has scrolled down the page at an earlier point and will automatically land there again (Opera is a browser that is very stubborn with this)? For that alone you'd need more JS and possibly juggle with the styles. That can't be a good way to go. And even for the initial display you'd have to stuff some media queries inside the head directly in order to try and get things right without resorting to full screen sections. That's all quite counterproductive and overcomplicating.
Putting <style> or <link> tags outside the head section might work but it's incorrect. I'm sure Google's not on that standpoint anymore and that the English version is the only valid documentation.
Edit - see comments for a nuance on this.
Even if one does do it the google way and get a 'good' score on PageSpeed Insights that doesn't mean too much. You could still hide the whole page and only show it when everything has been loaded (which isn't unusual) without that effecting the score.
I've personally decided to ignore it until they've implemented a feature where you can load CSS asynchronously (like you can with JavaScript and async already) like is announced in the documentation. It would still require a special use case then but at least you could build a framework for it. Not a fan of plugins for something rather trivial myself.
One important thing is missing in the Google documentation - providing a fallback when JavaScript has been disabled. Luckily with HTML5, <noscript> tags can be used for this :
<head>
/* other stuff */
<noscript><link rel="stylesheet" href="small.css"></noscript>
</head>
Sidenote - Google's own analytics script will prevent a perfect PageSpeed score because of the (logically) quick cache expiration they've set on it. Figure that.
I'd suggest you have a look at this repository: https://github.com/filamentgroup/loadCSS
LoadCSS is a very savvy script by the people at Filament Group to lazyload stylesheets in a way, that most browsers play along nicely.
If Javascript is disabled or for whatever reason the script won't work, there are fallbacks included as well.
To answer your specific questions:
Javascript is NOT required to accomplish what you want. There are several methods for loading CSS in a non-blocking fashion. Some rely on JS, some do not. Filamant Group's LoadCSS is a JS option. Critical Path's CSS Generator is one non-JS method. The process of generating the critical CSS can also be automated using Gulp or Grunt.
While your method will work it's not recommended. Google recommends loading the non-critical CSS files using Javascript so the CSS is loaded into the head after the page has finished loading.
Alternatives
There are 2 ways to improve your current implementation.
It sounds like you're currently loading 2 CSS files - your site's CSS, and font-awesome.min.css. This requires 2 HTTP requests and will cause a small delay. Combine the CSS from the 2 files into a single CSS file.
As the others have pointed out Google recommends inlining the critical CSS into the head of the page, and loading the remaining CSS in a non-blocking way. An alternative option I've found useful is to load the entire contents of the CSS into the head of the site within a style tag. I recommend this only if your CSS file is relatively small and minimized.
<head>
<style>
// ALL YOUR CSS
</style>
</head>
I think you are focusing on the wrong part of their (confusing) documentation. I think what they really are trying to share, is that you should put your critical CSS inlined into your html. Look at the blue class in the style tag
<html>
<head>
<style>
<!-- This is what they are trying to show -->
.blue{color:blue;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="blue">
Hello, world!
</div>
<script>
var cb = function() {
var l = document.createElement('link'); l.rel = 'stylesheet';
l.href = 'small.css';
var h = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]; h.parentNode.insertBefore(l, h);
};
var raf = requestAnimationFrame || mozRequestAnimationFrame ||
webkitRequestAnimationFrame || msRequestAnimationFrame;
if (raf) raf(cb);
else window.addEventListener('load', cb);
</script>
</body>
</html>
I read the same documentation in french, which seems to be as outdated as your dutch version and here again, they placed the blue class inlined
<html>
<head>
<style>
.blue{color:blue;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="blue">
Hello, world!
</div>
</body>
</html>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="small.css">
What they are trying to tell, is that critical CSS can be put directly in html without loading the whole CSS file. In their example, the blue class is critical since it is the only one used.
Concerning the outside of the html tag, It is indeed invalid HTML, but browsers seems to allow it anyway. For the JS code part I guess they are trying to add the stylesheet in the header, but only when the JS will be executed, which mean at the end of the page load. At this point, you might want to think about code readability over performance.
Well, there are 3 main sections, where You can place
first is body, second is head and third is everywhere in html, try to work with it

Stopping parent page from overriding iframe style

I am very very new to this, so I apologize if this is very simple or has been asked elsewhere.
I am using Responsive Table Generator to generate a table from a Google document that I then try to place on a webpage using their iFrame code.
The generator gives me a handful of .js files and a .html and .css file to upload to my site. I then use the provided iFrame code to embed it on the page I want.
<div id="table-iframe-container"></div>
<script src="http://nesemc.com/test/markdown-3/news-table/pym.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function() {
var pymParent = new pym.Parent(
'table-iframe-container',
'http://nesemc.com/test/markdown-3/news-table/index.html', {});
}());
</script>
However, I believe the parent page is some how overriding the .css style of the generated table.
You can see an example here: LINK
How can I stop this?
Your styles aren't leaking. Your iframe isn't wide enough to see the "full view", and you have styles that are responsive and don't work when that small. Make your iframe wider and it'll look like you want. If you remove max-width: 960px; from the #affero-page styles in consolidated.css, you should see it.
To see what you are looking at, go to this page: http://nesemc.com/test/markdown-3/news-table/index.html?initialWidth=860&childId=table-iframe-container (your iframe content), and play with the browser width. You will see once you get too small, it then displays how you have it.

How to proper load custom fonts on website

I'm declaring custom font inside css file, using #import and assigning them to elements:
I do not have access to the head tag of the site, I'm doing it in the body...
this does not work.., My question does custom font must be declared in the head of the page in order to load?
Using jvascript
(function loadCss(url) {
var link = document.createElement("link"),
url = "App/components/core-jasmine/jasmine.css";
link.type = "text/css";
link.rel = "stylesheet";
link.href = url;
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(link);
})();
Do not use #import for css files if possible (except in certain circumstances like using #media for different devices) as it can stop CSS files from loading correctly.
You can declare a link tag to import CSS outside the head tag but it can cause several issues - mainly according to W3C specs you should only declare link tags in the head tag (I.E. it would fail the W3C validator). Loading it in the document body also increases load time as the browser has to restyle the page after load.
But in theory, yes, it can be done.

What Exactly Happens When Some CSS Code Found on the Footer

I understand that CSS is used to decide about Layout and other styling things on Web Page. and If CSS is at the bottom of the page then everything (html elements, text, image, etc) will be displayed by using Browser's own styling and when browser find our CSS then it redesign pages again for us. It may be called repainting!
So, I understand that it will look very ugly repainting the page and user seeing it (FOUT - Flash of Unstyled Text - as expert named). But still, I want to understand about:
How much time this repainting can take? Approx value! I understand this can depend on content on the page.
What else happen or can happen?
My main concern right now is about using font-awesome CSS file (externally hosted on their own cdn which download css and font files). I want to know what will happen across devices if I place this at bottom of the page or delay its loading ? Currently it is placed on <head> section as
link rel='stylesheet' href='http://netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.0.3/css/font-awesome.css' type='text/css' media='screen'
Use Del so that it should not look main part of the question. Main part of the question is about Some CSS at the bottom then What will happen to repaint, Blocking, etc. with measurement given or supported by measurement etc.
In the above case or in case when only part of document will get affected by CSS at the bottom then what will happen? Browser repaint everything, and what else? How much time it can take. Suppose, font-awesome is used at 10 icons placed in <i>.
I am never sure of what actually happens when CSS is at the bottom. So, please if you have any video or image showing flow then please mention here.
Base everything on performance across devices, and off course user experience as well. Thank you.
Update: I got something more for myself and for everyone.
Here is a function (delayLoadCss) Google suggest for css for below-the-fold content. Though, I am not going to go that extreme but what about doing that for Font-Awesome kind of CSS?
In my experience the loading of css will be virtually instantaneous no mater where it appear on the page--except in one instance: what will cause a delay in the browser applying your css is placing your css after a script element that takes time to complete.
This is why it is considered best practice to end your body section with your scripts, that way your page is rendered and styled before the browser commits to crunching through your scripts.
So if you html looks like this:
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/styles.css">
<script>
[long loading js]
</script>
</head>
<body>
... content
<script>
[long loading js]
</script>
</body>
Then your css will still be applied right off.
However if you structure it like this:
<head>
<script>
[long loading js]
</script>
<style>
[css here]
</style>
</head>
<body>
... content
<script>
[long loading js]
</script>
</body>
or even
<head>
<script>
[long loading js]
</script>
</head>
<body>
... content
<script>
[long loading js]
</script>
<style>
[css here]
</style>
</body>
Then your css will not be applied to the document until after the js has completed.
The first is best practice and I recomend keeping style tags out of your document completely, but certainly out of the body of your document. External style sheets placed above you script tags is the way to go... This is true for font awesome's externally hosted css also. The browser should not hang on rendering that unless your link to it appears after a script element that is taking up the browsers attention.
* EDIT *
However this post directly contradicts what I just said.
There are two cascades that occur with CSS.
The small Cascade: this is the parsing of an individual style sheet
The Big Cascade: This is where the browser performs three "small cascades", in this order:
User Agent (the web browser's native stylesheet)
Author (the stylesheet that you write)
User (the stylesheet the end user can write).
Your question is about what would happen if you put styles anywhere but the head. Let's discuss:
The browser has its own native stylesheet sitting in the background
The browser loads your HTML document first
The browser then reads the <head>
the browser loads assets in the <head>
the browser parses the rest of the document, i.e. the <body>. assets and style rules located here will be processed last.
the last <style> block, or the last stylesheet in your document is the one whose styles over ride everything else.
In a nutshell, the browser applies styles in the order in which they are seen. A stylesheet at the footer would make things worse, not better. I can't offer a quantifiable measurement of worse because I don't have your stylesheets or website.
All Browsers have FOUC (or FOUT). The duration of it is based on the speed of the browser and the quality of your stylesheet. A minified stylesheet which applies text styles immediately after the reset, and before other styles, usually has the least amount of FOUC.
The styles in the footer are not blocked from being processed, and they will not block styles in the <head>, either. Styles in the footer are simply processed last.
I appreciate the answer from Jeremythuff, however I would also like to answer as well and hope it helps you.
Approx it will take a time to download CSS file (if not cached and not inlined) + a moment. This moment depends on CPU, GPU, HD speeds (if cached) and content + scripts as you have already mentioned. In real practice you do not want to use [link href="..."/] at the end of body because of download time.
You also do not want to use inline styles, because they are not cached and this is yet another piece of code users will download with html, however, this solution can work with small inline styles. In practice it does not produce blinks.
I recommend the following schema:
HEAD > MAIN CSS > BODY > HTML > ADDITIONAL CSS > SCRIPTS
If scripts change default behavior of elements (for example preventing a link from clicking) I recommend to put scripts in head instead.
Now about fonts. In my opinion using external fonts is a bad practice. But if you want, fonts better to include in head because you probably cannot inline them in style tag. So the download time problem occurs here.
10 icons is nothing for nowadays CPUs even on mobile phones.
My advices are straightforward:
(if across devices, I also think of page weight because of slow mobile networks)
Have large additional css (significant difference between the size of html with and without css) - do not include at the end nor as [style]...[/style] (never caches), neither as [link href="..."] (takes download time).
Have small additional css - try with [style]...[/style] at the end of the body before scripts.
Do not worry about 10 icons rendering, worry about download time for 1st visiting users (for fonts).
Your questions are interesting... But there's a problem:
CSS stylesheets must be placed in the <head>!! (except if they are scooped)
Otherwise, your html markup is invalid. Then, every browser could handle it differently.

Is there a good non-blocking pattern for loading high-res images on the web?

I have a stylesheet (hi-dpi.css) and it contains a bunch of higher-resolution assets, many of which are inline (data URIs). But currently it blocks page render.
What’s the best way to address this?
Perhaps write the <link rel=stylesheet> tag after page load?
I have to ask this, before I go much further, but is it really necessary to have a lot of "hi res assets" in CSS? I mean, maybe it's just me, but ...
So here's my suggestion: Load everything BUT the data-uri in the "original stylesheet" (so that the page render still gets the image sizes and whatnot that may be declared) but have a second filesheet at the END of the page that has all actual data-uri in there. literally the last element of the page
I'm not ENTIRELY sure that will work, but it SHOULD help alleviate the problem.
The reason is because the rendering engine needs to know things like widths, CSS box model, etc, to render correctly, but rendering images tends to take longer for the graphics engine (this is my understanding) plus I'm willing to be the file is itself quite large, so it takes time to download. So by giving the page all the CSS box-model etc, it can do the layout, and load the images at the end.
You might want to read this: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html
And here's my ALTERNATE option:
Load low-res images in the current CSS (so the page shows something) and load the hi-res images in the footer CSS so that they overwrite the low-res images.
Put this script in the head, it should load it without blocking (test).
setTimeout(function () {
var el = document.createElement('link'),
sc = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
el.rel = 'stylesheet';
el.href = 'hi-dpi.css';
sc.parentNode.insertBefore(el, sc);
}, 30);
You may have to split it in parts if its too large, so it downloads in parallel.

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