YSlow Tuning onFlex.org - F(31) to B(81) in an hour
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Published
Sunday, June 01, 2008
at
3:30 PM
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I really like YSlow as a development/diagnostic tool. It provides a very simple scorecard for web pages against some proven best practices for web site development. Before I blogged about YSlow I wanted to do some site optimizations with it and decided to point it at my own blog. It is really amazing what small changes will do for page performance.
Here is what I did:
1. Reduced the # of HTTP Requests from 23 to 4
2. Reduced the # of images from 10 to 4
3. Added a cache headers to the /images directory via .htaccess config
4. Removed the Etags from Apache via .htaccess config
5. Moved linked imaged onto /images
OnFlex.org went from a YSlow score of F(31) to a B(81) and the page loading times are far faster 2x+.
Another item I was watching was page weight and loading time. Before my pages were around 250Kb in size but now they are all under 100Kb and in many cases under 50Kb with all components on the page (js, css, img, swf). The result is now all my page loading times are always under 1 second and in many cased under .5 sec for a full page load including the slow loading tracking js(uggghh).
I have to say that YSlow is one of the best tools for looking at website performance, you can see pages from the browsers perspective and optimize against some excellent best practices.
cheers,
Ted :)
First, thanks for the informative site! YSlow is definately a great way to get an overall performance assessment. I also like to use "View Speed Report" under the "Tools" menu in the WebDevToolbar for FF. I find you can get a bit more detailed analysis that way. Also, based on your screen shots why not go ahead and throw gzip into the mix by using the mod_deflate Apache module in your .htaccess? Take care.
John,
The GZIP issue is hard. The onflex.org is on a shared host and the apache running does not support mod_deflate.
Ted
Ted,
What version of Apache is your host running? Pardon me if I'm wrong, but it appears you are on 2.2.8 - which will support the mod_deflate module. After configuring it, its no more difficult to implement than some of the other settings you have tweaked even on a shared hosting account. Hope that helps, good luck.
Sorry Ted, I think I get what you were saying from before now! Blogger must not have 'mod_deflate' configured and you dont have access to the Apache config to enable it. Right? I think I got confused when you said "apache running does not support mod_deflate"...
John,
I host at PAIR.com on a shared host with 6 other accounts. Adding mod_deflate puts a big hit on the machine capacity as every request must optionally support compression.
If I got a dedicated machine, mod_deflate is supported but on a shared host not. Blogger can write to a dedicated host account via SFTP.
I was thinking I could do this via php via URLRewriting.
Ted :)
Ted,
Thanks for clarifying! Could you elaborate on your idea of using PHP and URL Rewriting? Any chance you could use Apache's mod_rewrite or is that in the same boat with a shared account on PAIR.com?
Have you had a look at the "Show Network Timeline" under the Developer menu in Safari 3?
- Randy
Yes, YSlow and FireBug are the best tools to develop and tune web sites/applications.
BTW, here a very good article about Apache GZip options:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6802