A presentation by SiteGround Performance Guru on how to optimize your Joomla website and make it more than 100 times faster. The topic covers various tips and tricks including:
Joomla backend optimizations
Template and extensions tips
Caching methods and useful plugins
CDN Options
Recommended server settings
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company - Insurer Innovation Award 2024
How to Speed Up Your Joomla Website
1. HOW TO SPEED UP YOUR
JOOMLA SITE?
Daniel Kanchev
Performance Guru
2. Before We Begin – Who’s That Guy Daniel?
ü 7+ years of Joomla! experience
ü 4 years with SiteGround
ü Love travelling the world
ü Addicted to extreme sports
3. ü Site speed affects your Google Rankings!
ü Keep readers/customers happy & paying
ü Be able to handle more visitors
ü Go green and save $$$ from servers
WHY BOTHER DOING IT?
6. ü Keep your Joomla! updated
ü Choose extensions wisely
ü Deactivate unused extensions, upgrade used
ü Simplify your templates as much as possible
GENERAL GUIDELINES
7. Simple Front Page Is Better
ü Fancy stuff – only if you really need it
ü Remove unnecessary large images
ü Use fewer internal/external links – add sitemap
ü Avoid loading content from remote servers
9. Enable Compression
ü Natively supported by Joomla! – no extensions needed
ü Requires mod_gzip/deflate to be enabled on the server
Site
Global Configuration
Server
12. Some .htaccess Magic
ü Get the code:
http://goo.gl/ze09B
ü How it works:
- Etag – Tells browsers that an image/unit does not need to be reloaded
- Expires Headers – Set different expiration dates for various file types
- AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE – minifies the compiled HTML source code
13. Some .htaccess Magic
ü The code:
FileETag MTime Size
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/css application/javascript
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "now plus 1 hour"
ExpiresByType text/css "now plus 1 week“
ExpiresByType application/javascript "now plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "now plus 1 week”
14. More Optimizations: Images, CSS & JS
ü Resize images – never upload 2560x1600 pictures
ü Smush your images
ü Minify and combine CSS and JS files
ü Use image sprites
15. Sounds Nice, How Do I Begin?
ü Use smush.it
ü Photoshop/Fireworks
ü Joomla! Extensions
16. Some Highly Rated Extensions
ü JCH Optimize – Combines JS and CSS, Combines
images in sprites, Minify and Compress
ü Jbetolo – same as above but + CDN support
ü JotCache – improves the Joomla! built in Core
Cache
ü Cache Cleaner – easily clean the cache from the
Joomla! admin panel
19. Google mod_pagespeed
ü An open-source Apache module - compress, combine and
cache
ü Needs to be installed/configured by a System Administrator
ü Available on SiteGround servers
21. Some Results – Default Joomla!
No
Optimizations
Cache/
Compression
.htaccess
rules
JCH
Page Load Time 1.61s 1.49s 1.32s 1.02s
Total Page Size 563KB 162KB 162KB 151KB
Number of Requests 35 35 35 19
Page Speed Grade F (41%) B (65%) B (87%) A (91%)
YSlow Grade C (70%) B (66%) B (86%) A (92%)
24. CDN Features
ü CDN will make your website faster
ü CDN will help avoid unneeded I/O on your hard drives
ü CDN will appeal to both Google and your visitors
25. Software Tweaks
ü Use fast and secure PHP like FastCGI
ü Move PHP binaries to RAM
ü Move TMP to RAM
ü Move MySQL to a separate hard drive: RAID & SSD
ü Enable MySQL query cache
ü Use TMPFS for MySQL’s tmpdir
36. ü Custom PHP/MySQL configuration
ü Memcached/PHP APC
ü Joomla! friendly reverse proxy setup
Our Own Solution: The SUPERCACHER
37. Final Results: Joomla + VirtueMart
No
Optimizations
Application Level
Optimizations
Server Level
Optimizations
Page Load Time 5.22s 3.49s 1.09s
Total Page Size 1.89MB 0.67MB 0.67MB
Number of Requests 76 28 28
Page Speed Grade F (41%) B (85%) A (92%)
YSlow Grade C (70%) B (84%) A (94%)
38. Some Key Takes
ü Speed optimization is a process – do it regularly
ü Always test!
ü Choose a well optimized host