Modified on 20 February 2021The website speed has been optimized in the past months. From December 2017 till 1 April 2018 the following improvements have been achieved.
| Parameter | Unoptimized | Optimized |
|---|---|---|
| YSlow grade | 73% | 92% |
| PageSpeed grade | 63% | 100% |
| Webpage fully loaded | 6 sec | 2.5 sec |
| Total number of requests | 55 | 21 |
| Total page size | 1400 kb | 600 kb |
Most important parameter is the page load time, which is almost 60% faster. The charts below show the details as measured by GMetrix. Be aware that the measurements are valid for loading the website (located in the Netherlands) from Vancouver in Canada. If the website is loaded from London the speed to load the page drops to around 1 second.
The significant website speed improvement has been achieved by performing the following steps:
- Using caching plugin WP Rocket.
- Used plugin Autoptimize to further optimize caching of the site (works together with WP Rocket).
- Used plugin ShortPixel to compress images without visual degradation in quality.
- Removed not really required plugins having influence on the website speed.
- Used GMetrix to profile the websites homepage to help in optimizing speed with above steps.
The difficulty was keeping the layout and functionality of the site the same. Often the tree at the left side on the galleries page did not work anymore, the slideshow in the header disappeared or the site did not display all the content. By selectively enabling/disabling options of the caching plugin and replacing plugins having a bad influence on site speed etc. I finally managed to have a fast website.