Hi, folks
with all the changes in the WP landscape; what is your thought “today” on best solution for page caching with Newsmag ?
Running into issues with speed for our NM sites now on PHP8.3 with Apache Pagespeed no longer working, we’ve lost the optimizations since 2016 that we relied on for concatenation, optimization, white space and comment removal, etc. Everything is 20% slower, and tools like Plesk PHP Optimizer not really doing anything for TTFB stuff.
New tools like this ( https://flyingpress.com/features/ ) promise a lot. GTMetrix now promoting WP-Rocket ( https://gtmetrix.com/blog/wordpress-optimization-using-wp-rocket/ ).
I tend to trust GTmetrix, having actually worked with them prior to their launching the test site ( I’m old 🙂 ).
Just general query as our site performance now sucks without server side pagespeed tool we have relied on.
Hi —
noticing in the latest v5 we are loading dozen .js files — do we really need all of these for a rendered page? underscore, thickbox, etc.
Seems like a lot of these should be able to be toggled off if not used on public facing rendered page. Or, adding directive to functions or code plugin to stop loading?
I mean, it is a *lot* of .js for fairly simple pages/posts.
Hi,
Regarding the theme’s js, it is set in the tagdiv_theme.min.js file and it is loaded in any situation where a script is needed because the js is in this file. Unfortunately, for the time being, this code has not been broken down in the Newsmag theme, only for the Newspaper theme.
Also, in terms of optimization, it relies heavily on optimization plugins, some of the most used are:
WP Rocket (paid) and Flying Scripts (free) – if you don’t want to fully unload, you can delay/defer the theme JS until interaction/idle to cut main-thread work.
Perfmatters (paid) – has an excellent Script Manager to disable scripts per page, everywhere except…, by device, etc.; also supports delaying
Asset CleanUp (free / Pro) – lets you unload JS/CSS per page, post type, taxonomy, or site-wide. Great for preventing the theme’s big JS file from loading where it’s not needed.
Plugin Organizer – broader hammer that can disable entire plugins per URL (handy if a plugin injects heavy JS on all pages).
Thank you!
Thanks. I know on the prior version of NM I went nuts on hacking things to remove any and all code, and unhook stuff. Didn’t do that this time and combined with loss of server side optimizations, sites really took a hit in Google. Trying to do damage control on that now.
Probably going to try wp-rocket.
Stuff like ThickBox.js is being loaded on post pages where never used, so really making a lot of fluff in page size and ttfb.
I really went nuts on the old versioh, subsetting font awesome, etc. — trying not to do that again as just a nightmare if any theme updates.
Peace out 🙂
fyi, for anybody running across this thread regarding optimizations …
for quick band-aid I re-installed Autoptimize, which I’d not used for years, and also added back the deflate rules to my htaccess file which I’d removed while debugging the issue with php8 ignoring htaccess directives.
These two fixes took the site from 83% to 95% on GTMetrix.
Finally, for those thinking of doing WP-Rocket, if you add or renew a paid subscription to GTMetrix for testing, they will give you 20% off coupon for the first year of WP-Rocket, so no brainer there.
Hi,
Big thanks for the optimization tips!
Appreciate the help!
simchris and Calin
thanks for the tips
Check our website http://www.cidademarketing.com.br on Google PageSpeed.
Update the PHP version to 8.3.23; we are currently updating the operating system.
https://support.cpanel.net/hc/en-us/articles/5946421721623-How-to-upgrade-from-CentOS-7-to-AlmaLinux-8-or-CloudLinux-7-to-CloudLinux-8-with-cPanel-ELEvate. We are considering removing a pop-up and permanently removing Google AdSense.
The TTFB isn’t at the ideal level. It’s a situation we haven’t been able to resolve so far.
These are our results via Google PageSpeed ​​- hoping the above actions will improve. I think the latest Google updates (core updates) have disrupted the rankings – which will be gradually adjusted.
our result so far without all the changes above
One question: The team that maintains our active server has prepared a new machine with an updated operating system to host our entire website again. First, they’ll create a backup plan and transfer all data to this new machine. Could this change drastically reduce our Google rankings?
Hi,
If the new server is more powerful, then moving the website there is for the best in the long term. I see the website score is very low. Besides cloudflare are you using caching/optimization? Autoptimize is great, and recently I saw that WP Optimize is a very good free plugin as well. In the premium range in my opinion nothing beats WP Rocket, it’s worth every penny.
Thanks.
I’m very grateful for everyone’s tips.
Simon, could you send me the link to the WP Rocket plugin? I did some research and found several with the same name. I’ll consult with our infrastructure team to see if the new server will perform better than the one we’re using. If it’s the same, I think it’s not worth it—as the saying goes here in Brazil—”swapping six for half a dozen.” I’ll install an optimization plugin to evaluate it. We’re also testing removing popups and Google Adsense, which consume a lot during the initial site access process. Thanks! Hugs,
