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[Migration] Slow Speed

Hi,
My site (Ionos hosting) has been getting slower and slower each time I run any performance test and because of this I have decided to try your hosting.

I have used your migration tool and duplicated my site on a testing server, but this has not really made a lot of difference and the performance tests are still very low.

Ionos – Desktop 70, Mobile 13
WPMU – Desktop 62, Mobile 16

Could you check my site and see why the performance is so low, especially on Mobile as I though switching to your hosting would solve most of my issues.

If it’s site issues rather then hosting then it’s not really worth changing my host.

Thank you

David

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 20:15:21
  • Patrick Freitas
    • FLS

    Hi David Pearce

    I hope you are doing well.

    The server can help with performance but most of the time is not the main issue when it turns to Google score.

    Using the WPMU DEV hosting takes the advantage to work along with our plugins and pro support to help you on how to improve your score.

    I checked your temporary domain in Google and created a review based on the Mobile score:

    Eliminate render-blocking resources

    This means the JavaScript and CSS files are loading before your website content which causes a delay in user interaction with the website.

    It is a good idea to move some files to the footer making the content load faster.

    For this step, you can use the WPMU DEV Hummingbird plugin > Assets Optimization:

    https://wpmudev.com/project/wp-hummingbird/
    https://wpmudev.com/docs/wpmu-dev-plugins/hummingbird/#assets-optimization

    Avoid moving some files for example jQuery-core and jQuery-migrate files.

    Remove unused JavaScript

    I don’t suggest we remove any JS or CSS file, google can’t see the entire site content and removing it can cause some problems.

    You can see on the tests that most of the time the reported file is from Google ADS, we do understand that we want to make some money with the website, but we can improve the delivery of those scripts.

    For example, I don’t see any advertising from Google on the home page but the script is loading on that page.

    In case you use a plugin for this feature, you can contact the plugin developer and verify if you can run the script in the pages where you load the ads.

    If you add the scripts manually you can check this workaround:
    https://www.wpfixit.com/super-slow-google-ad-script/

    Defer offscreen images

    I am afraid the reported images are background images and Smush Lazy Load or WordPress native Lazy Load can’t handle those files.

    You can contact your theme support to verify if there is any way to switch the images to HTML IMG tag instead of background images.

    Reduce initial server response time

    Being on the temporary domain it can take some time to cache the pages, make sure the Hummingbird > Caching is enabled.

    Some links that can help you to improve the score:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2WSkG6-x74&list=PLV1BcivFAIdu9nxH0DU-W7LO3pFKrmbhl
    https://wpmudev.com/blog/100-score-google-pagespeed-insights-not-happening/
    https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/check-wordpress-site-speed-gtmetrix-lighthouse/
    https://wpmudev.com/blog/speeding-up-wordpress/

    Best Regards
    Patrick Freitas

  • David Pearce
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Hello Patrick,

    Thank you for the detailed information above – my plan to just switch hosts to make things better doesn’t look to be quite as simple as I hoped for!

    looking at the main points you have highlighted above:

    Eliminate render-blocking resources;
    I do use Hummingbird and have the Assets set to Automatic – Speedy.
    I tried to do these manually before and just messed everything up!

    Remove unused JavaScript;
    I don’t know how to check what is “unused” – but I have noticed in the past that uninstalling plugins does not always remove all the files they have added, so there could be Scripts here that are not needed.
    I also no longer use Google ADS on this site

    Defer offscreen images;
    I though these “background” images may be an issue – I can manually change these if needed

    Reduce initial server response time;
    I have Caching enabled, but this hasn’t made any difference as yet.

    I’ll have a look through the various links you have provided to see what I can fix before committing to connecting my Domain Name to the migrated site.

    At least if I break something here, it will not effect my live site!

    I’ll work on my “home” page over the weekend and see what improvements I can make.

    Thanks

    David

  • Patrick Freitas
    • FLS

    Hi David Pearce

    The hosting can help you to get a better score, but it is more related to how well your website will handle the users when you get big traffic where you will see the big difference depending on hosting providers.

    I also no longer use Google ADS on this site

    The scripts still being called, if those are custom scripts, you can remove them, if are plugins keep them disabled.

    I do use Hummingbird and have the Assets set to Automatic – Speedy.
    I tried to do these manually before and just messed everything up!

    Can you grant the support access to your website and we can take a look at your manual configuration?

    https://wpmudev.com/docs/getting-started/getting-support/#enabling-support-access

    Let us know when the support is granted.
    Best Regards
    Patrick Freitas

  • David Pearce
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Thank you Patrick,

    I think most of the issues are site related, rather then Hosting/server speeds – but either way they need fixing as my load speeds (especially on a mobile) are way to slow…

    I have granted support access for you to have a look around.

    I’ve had another look at the manual asset optimisation and made some changes myself – this has improved scores in this area.
    The main changes I have made is to compress, defer and combine (using the filter per-plugin) as many css and js files as I can and block files that are from old/unused plugins.
    There is further work to do here, but this has improved this area.

    ———————————–

    These are the main issues from my last speed test for mobile;

    Eliminate render-blocking resources
    49
    Potential savings of 860 ms
    Remove unused CSS
    67
    Potential savings of 46 KiB
    Minify CSS
    88
    Potential savings of 9 KiB

    Minimize main-thread work
    0
    25.7 s
    Avoid an excessive DOM size
    20
    1,999 elements
    Reduce JavaScript execution time
    28
    5.5 s
    Serve static assets with an efficient cache policy
    89
    3 resources found

    If you could help me sort out these issues please!

    Thank you

    David

  • Patrick Freitas
    • FLS

    Hi David Pearce

    I checked your manual settings,

    It looks good, as it is a temporary domain and the site is not live I went ahead and fixed two files.

    We can’t move the Theme CSS file, to be honest, this is a Big CSS file which Theme provider should optimize and split into two files, one rendering the main styles to avoid a big Cumulative Layout Shift.

    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

    The latest score from Desktop is 69 and mobile 24, this can be improved when the website goes live and using some HTML CDN provider like Cloudflare to decrease the load time on all the locations.

    That score can be different depending on how the website is loading when the test is done, it is suggested to take more than one test as you can see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2WSkG6-x74&list=PLV1BcivFAIdu9nxH0DU-W7LO3pFKrmbhl

    I am afraid going further and removing JS and CSS will break the website which I don’t suggest.

    Let us know if you have any additional question.
    Best Regards
    Patrick Freitas

  • David Pearce
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Hi Patrick,

    thanks for the update – I have sent your Theme feedback to ColibriWP to see if there is anything they can do to assist.

    I have just re-run the speed test and I am up to 88 (desktop) & 51 (mobile) – better, but still not good enough for mobiles!

    Is there any further help you can give to help with these issues as everything can’t be CSS or JS related;

    Minimize main-thread work
    3
    10.6 s
    Avoid an excessive DOM size
    21
    1,970 elements
    Reduce JavaScript execution time
    28
    5.4 s
    Serve static assets with an efficient cache policy
    89
    3 resources found

    I still think there are some big issues to be sorted here, but I don’t really know what I am looking for.

    Thank you

    David

  • Patrick Freitas
    • FLS

    Hi David Pearce

    I am afraid no, from now it would need to look further in the website itself,

    There are some tweaks that we can take while creating the website that always help with the performance.

    Minimize main-thread work

    This basically means load fewer files as the delivery is already optimized using Hummingbird.

    But the website doesn’t have a big amount of plugins only the necessary ones as it should be.

    Some visual changes that can help are, for example, avoid loading multiple PopUps on the same page, make sure the Hustle mobiles have the visibility rules applied, for example, if it loads on Click but this button is only in the contact page, set the visibility to contact page only.

    Instead of loading PopUp + Contact forms on the same page, you can make an image as a call to action to a new page and load that form on a specific page, it will decrease the number of JavaScripts and CSS loaded also decrease the DOM size.

    Serve static assets with an efficient cache policy

    Those are external files and we can’t define the cache time to external files.

    Best Regards
    Patrick Freitas