I have taken over the management of a site - Expand in the USA. The site loads far more slowly than would be expected given its content and the fact that it has been optimized. When I run a speed test using Pingdom, I find that the bottleneck is the time that it takes to connect with the server (as highlighted in this screenshot). I am relatively inexperienced with this type of issue and was hoping someone might be able to suggest the root cause so that I can work on resolving it.
Hi instead of pingdom you please check with http://gtmetrix.com/ .Gtmetrix will give you exactly what is the problem.Try to install Pagespeed in your server which really helps to improve the performance and you will fell the difference even.
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We have a website that a few people are complaining about it running extremely slow. We're struggling to figure out why and to even recreate it. Most are mentioning that it's running slow in IE.
It's not limited to any specific section of the site, just the whole thing in general.
There's been several developers creating/adjusting the code so it's overly bloated but we can't see any specific reason why this should happen.
Can anyone see why?
We've also run a speed test:
I was running a profiling test with IE on your website and there is a call to:
http://www.playforce.co.uk/-ms-transform.htc
Which is giving error 404 not found and taking 1 second to complete (0.91 sec).
If is found all around your css under this line:
behavior:url(-ms-transform.htc);
Am no expert !! Am welcome to better suggestion and corrections of what i am about to say
You can try using a trial version of Borland Silk meter ..
They tend to measure the speed with which each element loads using various browsers and various geographical locations which are configurable by you.
Also , since only some of the user's are complaining about the speed being an issue you should also check the speed of their internet and their browser version and other addon etc of those users. Because sometimes the problem is not only with the server .
Try the above tool to confirm nothing is wrong in your server and then proceed to checking the client's browser and network.
As a developer and constant user of minipfoler, I use stakoverflow as the benchmark for my .NET sites. That is because the entire stack network is just a blazingly fast.
I know miniprofiler is used on stackexchange. There is a whole developers thing that can be used on stack but can we enable the stats to see how fast it really is?
I might be bit over obsessive here - but I am looking to improve permanences in milliseconds and the only viable benchmark is a large and complex site like stack exchange.
I know it might be a security issue to see live data but I just really want a benchmark (screenshot / guidelines) to see how far I can optimize my .NET MVC web application.
My actual IIS and MVC performance is fantastic and I think I am more concerned about server replies and client side stuff. So can I (and should I) put more effort into smashing down this response time?
This site is hosted in Azure Cloupapp and using Azure DB - I know about 60~180ms is used on connection times that are out of my control.
How can I improve times between Paint, Load and Complete?
I find that I answer my own question on StackExchange more often now a days. Not sure what that means. But this in interesting what I found while dealing with other Q&A's (And it answered this question)
Yes, you should avoid the obvious beginner mistakes of string
concatenation, the stuff every programmer learns their first year on
the job. But after that, you should be more worried about the
maintainability and readability of your code than its performance. And
that is perhaps the most tragic thing about letting yourself get
sucked into micro-optimization theater -- it distracts you from your
real goal: writing better code.
Posted by Jeff Atwood
There is no real problem in performance or serious delays. Its just an obsession that wont lead to much satisfaction.
The 'dudes' got a point. As long as my code is readable and it runs fast - what the heck more do I want?
PERFECTION! - Waste of time, lol#me!
Yet my site pages load very slowly. Usually there's a 2-3 second lag before the page renders, and I cannot figure out why.
My site is powered by Wordpress v3.4.2.
I'm on a dedicated virtual server with plenty of resources and
bandwidth.
There are no huge images loading.
My CSS files load before JS scripts.
I've spent a lot of time trying to optimize the site within the constraints of the platform (Wordpress + plugins, etc). I don't expect my site to be SUPER fast, but I need it to not be SO slow.
I'm using Chrome's developer tools to audit my site but the suggestions do not appear to explain the long load time (unused CSS rules, etc). When I look at the timeline, I see a 2.7x second load time initially but I can't figure out why. Can anyone help me get to the bottom of this?
My site is located here. The homepage has some extra scripts, so it may be more helpful to look at this page.
I found this superb guide which really helped me fight through the mire of optimising Apache for use with WordPress:
http://thethemefoundry.com/blog/optimize-apache-wordpress/
You said you have a virtual server so chances are it's currently set up to load EVERY module - you'll find a great speed boost here if you eliminate unnecessary modules. Keep a backup of your config file in case you screw it up.
Also - use the TOP command through SSH to see how much memory PHP is using. Probably a lot currently. This will all be improved through eliminating modules as per above link. You don't mention how much memory you have on your VPS but there's a good chance your performance issues are coming from memory thrashing which will be mitigated significantly by reducing how much memory each PHP instance consumes using the link above.
Also, it matters to find out where your performance issues are actually coming from – a great little plugin called WP Tuner helps me locate performance bottlenecks. The original plugin is incompatible but someone else has written an upgrade:
http://www.wwvalue.com/tuts/tut-wp/wordpress-profiler-tuner-revised.html
That will help you identify which specific parts of the page are taking the longest to load so you will immediately find your performance bottleneck.
In addition, a cool plugin called Debug Queries is useful for tracking down performance issues although the wordpress profiler above actually does track queries too.
Finally – I can’t recommend highly enough this WordPress.org discussion on performance, and specifically on W3 Total Cache vs Super Cache (both are excellent).
It’s a fantastic read for anyone looking for split-second response times:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-super-cache-vs-w3-total-cache
I use W3 total cache on one of my sites and WP Super Cache on another. Both are great. I used both so I could learn about both. I would say use WP Super cache plus all the other tools the guy at the link above recommends if you're looking for extreme performance, but if you're looking to get immediate performance W3 total cache is more comprehensive in its initial setup.
Hope that helps.
use caching plugin,
put JS files at the bottom,
try different webhost (DB server may be slow sometimes)
minify css and JS,
make fewer HTTP requests
make sure external services (like FB and others) are not slowing down (remove
them and see if it helps)
run Yslow or similar test
try to use typekit or google font instead of cufon
Have you tried http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/ or a similar caching plugin?
YSlow, dynaTrace, HTTPWatch, Fiddler .........
All these things are really good for measuring the performance of the website and get statistics for the same. YSlow is really cool, offers good guidelines also.
However, i am very confused with so many things around (Though it's good that people already invested time and have made nice guidelines to follow and i thank them for great work done).
Following are my questions:
How much accuracy these tools have in terms or numbers they show ?
Which one(tool) is BEST to use (one for all needs)? Or i am missing name of some tool which is out of box and better than above all?
I'm suprised that you haven't mentioned JMeter. It is free, quite easy to use, has lots of features, and great for load testing your website.
As for question one, I'm not sure I can answer that. I'm sure that in general, the numbers these tools show are pretty accurate, but there are some catches. Take JMeter for example:
JMeter itself uses a lot of memory and also some substantial CPU time if you do some heavy load testing. That means that if you run the tool on the same machine as your website, some resources are lost, e.g. not available for the website
Testing it on the same machine does not out-of-the-box take in account that the data has to be sent over the internet connection, so response times are lower then the reality.
But in all, I think you should never blindly trust the results these tools give you, but they can give you a good insight into possible bottlenecks or problems.
YSlow is good to measure performance for a single user. Try to keep it grade A and it will be OK. But it actually doesn't measure performance in case of multiple concurrent users. For that you can use under each Apache JMeter. It's a good webserver/webapplication stresstest tool. So I would say, just use both YSlow (for client performance) and JMeter (for server performance).
I haven't used DynaTrace before, so I'll skip that part. The mentioned HTTP request trackers doesn't really measure performance, they are more debuggers.
As far as I am concerned, i find YSlow to be really good (have tried fiddler too) and it does help me when i need it and i do believe that it provides the correct figures thereby making me use that in the time ahead too unless there is anything unanimously accepted (which is difficult because everyone has different choices and requirements.) or even better. Oh they are right, forgot the JMeter, something you should definitely give a mention.
There is also Speed Tracer extension for Chrome. It should be usable with any JavaScript heavy website.
http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/speedtracer/
http://gtmetrix.com is a good tool and it is free. that analyzes your page's speed performance using Page Speed and YSlow
Well I am sure that most people have seen the following:
This time, I did not install the local MSDN so I do not have the option of Local help, however I usually always use the first option of look online anyway.
I was wondering if there are any downsides to not installing MSDN?
The only one I have found so far is that dynamic help does not seem to work. As this is a feature I love, I think I will install MSDN.
I was just wondering, are there any other downsides and what do others use?
Edit -
It is hard to really select one answer here and I did various experiments and came up with my own conclusion. They are all good points so +1 to everyone - I was going to put this as an answer and mark it, but that feels rather cheap... so I have edited the question and will have to think about who to mark as answer.
I have been experimenting with different combinations and it is weird to say the least. On a new project, I just pressed F1 at random places and it is amazing that the differences are huge in the pages which are returned - For example, just selecting a <form> tag and pressing F1 came up with 100% different results between online and offline help.
I love the dynamic help feature but I always have an internet connection... I am confused and just not sure what I should do! Another benefit I have found is that through offline help, you can sync the sidebar and navigate around VERY quickly and find other articles - which is much harder online.
I think I will install help, but I am really not that happy... I hope the help feature is improved in VS2010 (haven't had a chance to play around or see) because it shouldn't be this hard to try and choose!
#blaketaylor.nameindex.ht - I personally find Google a bit mucky when I just want to figure out one property or item etc... I like looking in MSDN / Documentation first as there is usually a good example and then just look at Google after if I cannot figure it out - the dynamic help feature is a brilliant feature which I love and skips straight to the correct part in the library, and you do not get this without installing help.
#Shiraz Bhaiji - Agreed with your points, however, I think 2GB's is not really huge. I like your comparison.
#Yassir - It disabled the dynamic help feature, 2GB's isn't huge, I do like Google and SO but I like to try and get it done on my own first.
#Stephen Nutt - Agreed about speed, but it isn't really by much. How do you see local and online help at the same time? I love Dynamic help but when I click a link, it goes straight to local help and I see no options.
I have never found the local help to be of any use. I stopped installing it years ago and have never looked back.
Google is my help.
The main downside to not installing local help is that you do not have access to help if you do not have access to the internet.
The benefits of not having it local are:
Always up to date
Does not use space on your harddisk
I really don't think you might need it unless you don't have no internet connection all the time
also it takes about 2Gb of your hard drive !!
All you need is google and SO :)
I always use local help - it is much faster to navigate around in. When I do a search it always brings up the results count in my local help and online, if I see nothing in my local help I just click on the online tab and see the online search results.