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I already use the WordPress SEO plugin but would like to change to my theme's SEO. Will I lose all my meta data for preceding posts if I change? Would I have to re-enter all the meta data for each post?
You can use the plugin SEO Data Transporter to convert the existing data to Genesis' SEO.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-data-transporter/
Bourn Creative | bourncreative.com | Twitter
Thanks, Brian. And then can I turn that plugin off afterwards? I am trying to minimize my plugins because the back end of my blog is so slow right now and I am thinking it is the number of plugins I have installed.
Also do you know if the SEO of Genesis better than WordPress SEO?
While both Genesis SEO & WordPress SEO do a great job on SEO fundamentals, WordPress SEO has a major advantage: an integrated XML sitemap.
While plugins do impact your site speed, WordPress SEO is not likely the culprit. If you post a link to your site, you might get some feedback on why it is slow.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
Maybe I will stay with WordPress SEO then. My link is: http://strandsofmylife.com
You need to modify your "to do" list if you want to speed up your site. Here are the things I see in a quick look:
Leave WordPress SEO; it's not your problem
The page weight of your home page is about 2.5 Mb. That is about 5x bigger than it should be.
Your page weight is so large because you are loading large images - consider shrinking them. Consider using a tool that let's you load a thumbnail that is clickable to a bigger image. That way, only the thumbnail loads for those who aren't interested in a higher res image.
It looks like you are loading jQuery 2 times - once through WP and a 2nd time through Google. Drop the Google version. If that is not by design, find the plugin that is doing that, and drop it until the plugin author fixes it.
The Google visualization javascript is adding 438 K to your home page. Do you need it there? Do you need it at all? If you don't need it on your home page, load the script conditionally on the page where you need it.
It looks like you are using Jetpack. Disable all Jetpack features you don't use and install and activate the Manual Control for Jetpack plugin, available in the WP repo. Since you have Google Analytics, Jetpack stats is a duplication. It's nice to have stats in your WP backend, so it wouldn't be the first thing I drop. In your quest for more speed, if things are still too slow after making other changes, you can evaluate how important it is.Hope that helps.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
Thanks so much for all that help. I will see what I can do about scaling the images. My theme requires the photos to be 1024 wide. How many kbs would be acceptable?
I am not sure what jquery is so I don't know why it is loading twice. Have you a suggestion as to which plugin might be doing it?
Again, I don't know what Google visualization javascript is so I am not sure how to rectify that.
I will look at jetpack and see what I can disable, looking at perhaps deactivating it completely.
I really appreciate your help with this. These changes are long overdue.
Regards,
Suzanne
Oh, and could you tell me where I can find the size of my front page? In the source code? If so, whereabouts? That way I can check it as I make changes.
If you are using Firefox, download and install a) Firebug and b) Yslow. That will allow you to get a better understanding of what is loading on your page. Yslow will give you basics of what your page weight is, etc. You can also use Pingdom (I'm intentionally not including links because they've given me problems in other forum posts tonight - just google Pingdom to find their tool).
jQuery is a javacript library that is automatically loaded by WP. It should only be loaded 1x. Sometimes, bad plugins load a second copy. There are also some who believe (in my view, mistakenly) that loading jQuery from Google is a speed advantage. So, you can check your plugins for any mention of loading jQuery from Google as a performance gain. If so, disable that.
For Google visualization javascript, if you didn't load it by design, it is loaded either by a plugin or a Jetpack feature. Are you using something like Sharedaddy polls? That might be the culprit there. In general, if you don't have the background to research this, to find out what plugins are loading what javascript, you have to use a slow but basic method: make a list of all of your activated plugins and use a tool like Pingdom to see all of the javascript (files that end in .js) that are loaded. Then, deactivate 1 plugin, wait about 10 mins (because Pingdom can cache results), and re-run the test, noting which javascript is no longer loading. The plugin you just deactivated was loading that script.
On images, yes, your theme somewhat paints you into a corner. So you have to watch image file sizes. JPG's employ compression, so not all JPG's in the same size will have the same weight in Kb. In a tool such as Photoshop, you can control the compression of the image. For example, on the Pretty Pictures demo, images that are the same size as yours are about 150 Kb - far smaller than yours in page weight. Also, note on the demo that smaller images can be used, so you don't have to load large images on every home page post. Finally, you can also reduce the # of posts shown on the home page (perhaps drop 1). Compare the page weight and loading time of your site to our demo: http://prettypictures.wpperform.com .
Don't fret over every 1 of these suggestions (except the duplicate jQuery - that's a problem!). They are part of optimizing your site. You may reasonably choose not to implement all of them, accepting a slightly slower site for certain functionality or presentation. It will be a process to get your page weight down, but the benefit will be more organic search traffic.
Also, are you on Bluehost? It's just a personal opinion, but they aren't going to make your site a speed demon. Your site without making any modifications on my network would be much faster than it is now.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
Wow! That's heaps of information. I will work through all this. Thanks so much!
Meanwhile, I was wondering where to find the WP Repo so I can manually change Jetpack? I have Googled it but it takes so long to work through all the results and I haven't found an answer yet.
As for Jquery, I googled it too and I did see what you mentioned that people think it is better to load from Google but I am happy to take your advice on this. I haven't found which plugin it might be though. I did have a poll on my site once but I don't think I used a Plugin. Maybe I will trash that post. I don't need it. I used Polldaddy.
I have already just now reduced the number of posts on the front page from 10 to 7. I figured that would help.
I am with Bluehost unfortunately. Which server would you recommend, especially considering that my traffic is climbing so I need a server which will cope?
Bill, I did a search for Jquery on each of my plugins and found it throughout my Contactme Plugin which creates the form on my Contact Me page. Could this be the problem?
Sorry to add so many comments but I found this: http://prettypictures.wpperform.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?... It has the jquery in it. Could this be the extra one?
1. The WP plugin repository or "repo" is at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
2. For Jetpack, the Manual Control for Jetpack plugin will appear to do nothing but it serves a purpose. Jetpack adds a lot of new features, and more seem to come with each release. The new features are auto-activated. The Manual Control plugin turns that auto-activation off, so you can review the feature and decide if you want to activate it.
3. On jQuery and reading stuff about WP, always have a skeptical viewpoint. It's easier to publish a post that contains bad information than to be thorough and accurate. Also, keep in mind the date of the information you discover. Things change, so what was an advantage several years ago might not be any more. Much of what you probably read on not using WP's jQuery is either outdated or lacks proper perspective. Some say that you should use external jQuery to take advantage of browser pipelining which is restricted to 2 downloads from 1 server at a time. That's outdated. The setting in current builds of Firefox set the # of HTTP requests served per server at a max of 30, not 2. It also lacks perspective because in your site, jQuery is a core resource required to run WP and takes up less than 4% of your page weight. Tinkering with it can create problems for negligible (if any) performance gain. It's better to focus on the things that matter (the 96%) than tinker with the 4%.
4. Your page weight is down to about 1.5 Mb, so you dropped about 1 Mb overnight. That's pretty good. A lot of that came from dropping javascript and the Google visualization JS is gone.
5. The jquery you linked in your last post is the jquery you want to keep. Note that it is coming from your own server and the /wp-includes/ folder (part of WP core).
6. In the link you provided to your website, you omitted the 'www'. The domain with the 'www' and without are 2 separate things, so you have to use 1 consistently. In your case, the non-www redirects to the www one, so I imagine you want to use the www as your primary. That's fine. But take a look at the Pingdom tool to see the speed difference between the 'www' and non-www. Your setup is taking a loooong time to do that redirection. It should be virtually instantaneous.
7. I only like my own hosting service 🙂 Picking a host is hard, and configuring a server is much harder. You wouldn't want to pay for the things you need to run a high performance WP site, and you can't do it effectively on a shared host. One example: ask Bluehost what their PHP memory limit is (it used to be 64 Mb). On our service, it's 256 Mb. Too little PHP memory is 1 reason your site can be slow. If you setup a VPS (more $), you need the server admin skills to set it up right. Most that go the VPS route don't end up with a VPS that is properly configured, since they aren't server admins. Those are some of the reasons why I set up a managed WP service. I think a managed WP approach is better for people that want to focus on their sites and content.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
Thanks, I downloaded those tools and worked hard on getting the weight down last night after getting your emails.
2 & 3. I eventually found how to turn off some of the Jetpack features and did so. I can see the words Jquery in the Jetpack Contact form and the Share feature. Could they be the problem? Unfortunately they are both features I need. If that is the problem, maybe I can get them in a different way. Any ideas?
6. I think when I set up my blog in WordPress, I had to choose whether to have the www. or not or to have both and I chose both. Maybe I can find that place and check only the without www. option because I have it without on my business card and elsewhere. But what if I have the www. version somewhere else and it no longer works?
7. What is your hosting service and what would be involved in changing over?Regards,
Suzanne2 & 3 - jQuery is not a problem. It's required to run your site. It's a javascript library that is used by core WP and some plugins. Your original problem was that you had 2 copies of it loading, which can cause things to break. It appears that whatever you did fixed that. Your total javascript contribution to page weight is about 200 Kb, which is not bad and not worth worrying about. You brought that down a lot. The "base" javascript to load the Pretty Pictures demo is about 107 Kb, so your current batch of activated plugins aren't adding too much. These are raw numbers (ie, not compressed), and your typical visitor will receive compressed files, so you can scratch jQuery and javascript off your list for now as a job well done.
6. I don't think you chose "both" or you misunderstood the question. Visit your Settings->General page and note the URL's that are listed - do they contain 'www' or not? (I think the label is "Home" or "Blog address" but I've seen the screen so many times I haven't paid attention to the label in a long time, so it might have changed.) You can also look at (but do not modify!) your wp-config.php file and look for values of WP_SITEURL or WP_HOME. The bottom line is that you have to choose 1 or other, and you did. As of a long time ago (at least 4 years, maybe longer) WP has had support for canonical redirects. That means 1 version (either 'www' or non-www) is canonical (specified by you as the preferred version). WP does the specifying for you by how you entered the values in Settings->General. Since your non-www redirects to your www version, the www version is your canonical URL. Changing this is not impossible, but it is a bit of work, and the work has consequences. You already have about 1k links in the Google index, all of which (at least the ones I checked) are the www version. Those could be redirected to the non-www verison (the work part), but 301 redirects have some slight negatives in the SEO world (how slight is debatable). Bottom line: you have to choose 1 or the other, and it might be easier to reprint your cards or use them up in a hurry and fix it when you reprint. Meanwhile, always refer to your site with its canonical URL (avoid what you did when linking to your site in this thread). Next, if you haven't done so already, get a free Google Webmaster Tools account and establish ownership of your site. Tell Google which URL you prefer (www or non-www) - and the URL should be your canonical URL. Either bite the bullet and investigate changing this (but don't leap in and change it!) or tell Google to use the www version (safer and easier at this point). Your current server setup is taking a long time to handle the redirect that WP has set up from non-www to www. You should check with your host to see what the problem is. One common cause is that WP's redirects are not at the bottom of your .htaccess file (where they should be).
7. Before I can say whether we're a good fit, I'd need some information from you. Your home page says you are in New Zealand. From where do you expect to attract the bulk of your visitors - the US or outside the US? That makes a big difference in where you should host. Our servers are in the US in New Jersey, a good location for the US. As a general rule, you should host your site where the majority of your visitors are. You can look at Google Analytics to get a handle on this. Serving WP cross continent will add some latency (just use Pingdom to test your site from Europe to see this), and that latency will make your site slower and hurt your organic search traffic. Your interest as site admin is affected, but if you locate in NZ only to make the WP dashboard faster for you, that's not good for your US visitors. You are hosting on Bluehost, which is serving up your site from Dallas TX, so either you are intentionally targeting US visitors or accepting the cross continent latency. If you are targeting users in your own country, you shouldn't move to us but rather to a good NZ host. We strictly do managed WP hosting, not general hosting. That means we handle the worries of security, WP/plugin upgrades, etc, leaving you to focus on running your WP site. We don't do email. What we do is serve up WP very reliably and very fast. Trying it is free. We'd move a copy of your site (free, blocked from search engines so you don't get duplicate content issues) to our service. If you like it, you would modify your DNS for your domain to point to our servers. Since you control your DNS, if you don't like it, you modify your DNS back to your current host (which remains accessible by its IP address). Our cost is slightly more than BH's standard hosting, but cheaper than their Pro Hosting pricing. I'm happy to send you more info, but first consider your target visitor. That should be your first consideration.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
Oh, I'm glad that somehow I fixed the Jquery problem.
I think I have a Google Webmaster Tools account - I will check tomorow morning. It's past midnight here in New Zealand and the New Year has started. I must go to bed.
The vast majority of my audience is from the US - that's why I have my host there. Could you please let me know your costing and if it suits, I would do what you said and try it out first. My husband is in IT and he knows how to modify the DNS but I have never done it. What kind of traffic a day can your servers cope with? I know a fellow blogger had to move from Bluehost because they couldn't cope with her traffic when it rose.
Off to bed.
You can shrink your jpg filesize, without compromising quality at jpegmini.com
Without an account you can upload 1 jpg at a time. With an account you can create albums.
@Leon - Is there something special that you know about jpegmini.com's compression approach? Photoshop's tools should provide results that are at least as good.
@Suzanneper - Cost is $10 or $20/mo, depending on features. In your case, we'll give you 3 mo free as a trial. Just email sales at wpperform.com and we can explain more. On traffic, it's a good question, but you first have to understand the difference in approaches.At BH, you are on a shared server running Apache, which starts off with a pool of resources. You are 1 of many on that server. The traffic that you can reasonably serve is a function of several things: the starting pool of resources (the BH features) and the loads placed by others on that server (over which you have no knowledge/control unless you do some digging). In your or your friend's case, you could have traffic that is too big for the starting resource or someone else on the server is consuming too many resources and BH isn't paying attention or doesn't care. (I had a case where a client had little traffic but the server was often reporting high loads, and BH refused to move them to another server.) At BH, your shared server connects to a database server, which I think is a single server (ie, if it's down, your WP site is down).
Our approach is an entirely different model. First, we are running a different server OS, Nginx, that is much faster than Apache. Second, our web and database servers are redundant, so a failure by any 1 is not fatal; our DB servers are set up to use a different DB class to take full advantage of the redundancy. Third, our web servers are behind a load balancer that directs traffic to the least used web server. In effect, a site exists on multiple web servers and is served by the 1 with the least traffic. Lastly, the # of web servers can go up and down easily (within a few minutes) as traffic changes, which we monitor constantly. If traffic spikes for 1 day, we can bring additional servers online for just that day, at very low cost. We use aggressive caching that converts pages to static HTML, so frequently accessed pages can be served up in about 1/2 second (500 ms), which reduces the processing that the web servers need to do (no need to run PHP or get info from the DB server to figure out how to produce a page). This model serves the smallest and biggest sites equally well. It is very similar to the approach that WP.com uses to run 50 million + sites. And btw, hats off to the WP.com folks, because they often document technologies they adopt, so everyone in the WP world benefits. So the answer to your question about how much traffic is supportable is not as much a technical one as it is compared to BH, just a financial one in terms of how much traffic you want to pay to support. The $10/mo plan is probably good for about 5k/mo visitors; the $20/mo plan, about 15k. We don't turn off the spigot if you go above a visitor or pageview count on a consistent basis. We just kindly encourage you to give us more $ 🙂
Hope that helps.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
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