Here’s useful information for speeding up your WordPress website.
If you can’t find what you need, we invite you to email us your speed questions.
Knowledge-base sharing plugin speed tricks.
Sitedrag is our fusion word for the inexplicable, undocumented loading of plugins on every single page and post of your site. Sitedrag is bad for user experience.
We could add 42 extra discrete plugins and still be ahead of installing Contact Form 7. One fat plugin!
“Too many plugins slow down your site.” This web myth is a lie. It’s not the quantity of plugins but poor quality that slow down WordPress.
We only have 2,000 milliseconds. That’s our performance budget. If Time to First Byte (TTFB) is a typical 1 second. And HTTPS security handshaking is 100 milliseconds more. That’s means 1,100 milliseconds of speed overhead is burnt up. More sitedrag!
Now we only have 900 milliseconds remaining to load the real page assets. What’s the best solution? Read the free articles below. They will help you kill sitedrag. It can be done.
Speed best-practices.
Creative performance optimization.
by PagePipe staff
Shared hosting
Twenty-nineteen theme
This episode shows you how to speed up the default Twenty-nineteen
WordPress released core version 4.7 in early December 2016. The default Twenty Seventeen theme included a new Customizer CSS editor.
Before you read our post: read this one first offsite:
https://gutenberghub.com/gutenberg-vs-elementor-html-bloat/
What's the verdict on how Gutenberg editor affects WordPress load time?
Some
WordPress works fine. But you need plugins to add extra features and functionality. Without plugins, WordPress is not worth as
Your plugin choices affect website speed. But how much plugins affect load time varies from a thousandth of a second
Comments are a unique and tightly integrated feature of blogging. But the Internet has changed. It's an uglier, more cruel
Using the Disable Emojis plugin removes the emoji functionality added in WordPress 4.2. WordPress does not need emoji. Probably, the
We generally think image sliders are a bane. We've written about the problems before. But if your client is insistent
“As the developer of Relevanssi, I have to agree with your premise: for most users, the WP default search is
Many WordPress site owners cause damage when adding a popular contact-form plugin. Contact forms can hurt your load time. Not
Loading plugins redundantly and globally decreases the speed of your pages. It's best to deactivate heavy plugins on pages where
There's a small and innocuous request of JavaScript made by WordPress core. Most WordPress site owners are unaware it even
PagePipe is anti-waste and pro-thriftiness about more than just web speed. We don't like the misuse of any web resources.
We do not like multi-function plugins claiming to do everything imaginable. That's sure trouble. For speed and fast results, we
The missing WP Super Simple Speed plugin is still available to download on GitHub.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he plugin author removed the plugin because
Minification is not an important optimization tactic for mobile speed.
There are 31 minification plugins in the WordPress directory. They vary
Selective activation of plugins is a favorite strategy for speeding up WordPress websites. Now you can use plugin skills to
You've read it a thousand times.
"Broken Link Checker is the best broken link checker plugin for WordPress."
Not any more.
Who recommends
Your browser stores cookies. They enable a site to ‘remember’ little bits of information between pages or visits.
Cookies personalize the
Focus on reducing image file sizes for ultrafast mobile page speed. We've written an ebook about JPEG image optimization. Seventy
Gzip compression speeds up text based file transfers. It's not applied to image files. But it does compress HTML, Javascript,
Often blogs posted by other authors recommend "the best" plugins. We ignore these Disneyland fantasies fabricated by errant or evil
Below is a description and list of many plugins previously used on PagePipe. And the one we use today. Even
Never trust speed test scores. Ever. Always measure improvement in milliseconds of load time.
How to interpret pingdom.com and webpagetest.org speed
"A single YouTube embed can load up to 400KB of data before you even hit the play button."
Is a 2-second
Kadence Blocks Review [Free Version] - Can Kadence keep up?
A worthwhile addition to your block library.
If we could only choose
Some WordPress themes load fast because they don't activate jQuery JavaScript functions. External JavaScript calls temporarily block web page rendering.
Choosing a plugin would be easier if WordPress permitted a little more repository information. Author-generated advice is untrustworthy because it's
Yes. "Autodescription" is a worthy plugin. It's benign. We've tested it. It's good for speed. But we don't advocate SEO
Security Myth: WordPress security plugins don't affect speed.The usual recommendation is iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security).Most people don't know
Let's examine one of the Internet's bigger speed service shakedowns: WP Faster. NOTE: Their home page loads in 2.76 seconds in
We don't recommend using Google’s PageSpeed Insight tools for doing mobile website benchmarking – or even for desktop. We avoid
Apply the 10 big boo-boos decimating mobile WordPress speed.
Use fancy decorative Google fonts. Don't use a mobile font stack.
REFERENCE: https://pagepipe.com/zero-latency-fonts-for-mobile-speed-system-ui-font/
Use
Performance benchmarks use scores from Pingdom.com, WebPagetest.org, or GTMetrix.com.
Oddly, no one mentions speed test scores don't matter. It's milliseconds that
Stackable Blocks Review [Free Version]- Does it stack up?
A full-featured block library
Stackable is what we consider a "full-featured" block library
What you should know about the Twenty Twenty theme - and potential mobile speed problems.
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e tested the Twenty Twenty default
SitemapsXML sitemap functions are included as part of WordPress core since August 2020. Google XML Sitemaps are supposed to help
We demonstrate a common but little understood speed problem usually labeled as Leverage Browser Caching. Various tests report this fault
Google Analytic code causes your site to fail two speed tests. And the test criteria are invented by the web-demigod
It's another incredible speed myth. Self-appointed experts claim including a caching plugin on your WordPress site is essential. Many plugin
Tons of articles rave comparing the merits and disadvantages of the Astra and Divi theme. They’re often biased by affiliate
This article explores page builder plugins - in particular, Elementor page builder. We examine inherent page speed hazards and fears.
Affliate links are a way to monetize a WordPress website. We don't do monetization on PagePipe - but many websites
Which WordPress theme would we choose for best mobile speed? You can't judge by looking at the theme on a
OPTIN-MONSTER'S REBUTTAL IS AT THE PAGE BOTTOM
Like many people, you may hate website popups. What's a popup? It's that annoying
While studying site security and speed, we tested the iThemes Security plugin. It's claimed to prevent malware injection. We're sure
If you search the phrase “Essential WordPress Plugins,” you’ll get about 1.8 million results. They all tend to regurgitate suggestions
Anti-spam
Myth: A plugin to protect your site from spam comments is vital. Prevents user registrations from bots.
The usual recomendation is
Autoptimize is a multipurpose plugin. In most cases, we hate multipurpose plugins like Jetpack or Yoast SEO. They're bloated, slow,
"Wordfence is slowing down our site. What's PagePipe's suggestion?"
Removing the WordFence Security plugin speeds up your site. When you pull
What matters and what doesn't about plugins in the WordPress world? Frequent questions are often web myths. But don't worry
Slow plugins? It's not the quantity, it's the quality that makes a difference. Web designers can't be arbitrary in loading
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If you enjoy our caustic speed articles, you'll love our pithy bi-monthly newsletter. Discover what matters most for mobile WordPress
WooCommerce plugin is one of the worst for slowing down pages. Slow sites come across as poor quality. Most of
It's a myth that using many plugins will slowdown your website. Being sloppy in judging plugin quality or necessity is
Related-posts plugins are a functional category. And there are a bunch – 38 plugins at the time of this writing.
This request - admin-ajax.php - can cause a 436-millisecond parallel delay. Many try to eliminate the delay. It's a popular
Aggregator websites getting 1 to 2 million visitors per month is pretty nice – and profitable!
Many agregator sites are somewhat
Today, PagePipe uses 63 plugins. About 30 not updated for over 1 year. Some for many years. We're not embarrassed
Use faster-and-simpler Koko Analytics for speed -- instead of slow-and-complicated Google Analytics?
"If you care more about user experience than data mining, use the Koko Analytics plugin."
We don't want more gobbledygook big
Why does Google repeatedly mess up web speed? We don't know. The harder they try - the worse it gets.
"Jetpack adds powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users including customization, traffic, mobile, content, and performance tools."
—Plugin description from
Notification bars run across the top of a website. They display valued information. Such as a link to a newsletter,
73 block plugins total tested*no. blockspg wt kbMs load time** rqst adj baseline block editor default65511769
Client request:
"It would be excellent if one lightweight plugin provided all our basic security needs. And could replace Askimet, Wordfence,
Rank Math adds 77.3 milliseconds of load time to all pages. The main concern is the database activity. It's a
PagePipe's goal was adding various full-width images to our catalog page near the top. Not only the column width like
WordPress by default adds query strings - “?” or “&” - to the static CSS and Javascript resources files used
We snoop on WPMU DEV often. Some may call this snooping industrial espionage. Maybe? It makes us feel 007ish. WPMU
When website owners do site speed testing, they eventually observe plugins get loaded on every page, adding to code bloat
We're intrigued.
PageSpeed Ninja plugin claims:
"PageSpeed Ninja is the ultimate WordPress performance plugin. You can make your site load faster on
WordPress Gutenberg Block EditorIs it an easier way to build websites than the classic WordPress editor?
Is it faster than a
Learn the truth about Elementor mobile-speed rumors.
This article is based on our experiments. If lazy load and Elementor work together
We admit there are times we find new plugins and think we know their function – only to find out
PagePipe ComboPack includes:
issue #1 - Contact.Me - Contact Form 7 plugin alternatives. CONTACT.ME details
issue #2 - Fly.Me - Hummingbird plugin
Do we think the Hummingbird all-in-one speed plugin for WordPress websites is cool?
Nope. We know you can get the same
StellarWP announced acquiring LearnDash, a learning management system (LMS) for WordPress. The product allows educators to create online courses, quizzes,
Read other reviews about Faster Graphics →