How should i improve my site's server response time?
on gtmetrix waterfall tab shows that my site spends 2.8 seconds on requesting part
how can i reduce this part's duration?
any help would be appreciated
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3Have you read the section where it says: "Please read our documentation to learn how you can monitor and measure where you server is spending the most time"? – Lodder Aug 22 '16 at 16:14
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I recently reduced the server wait time on a client website from over 5 seconds to about a third of a second.
What didn't help
Enabling the Joomla cache would probably have helped but this often causes issues for me with CAPTCHA's not working etc.
I tried the free version of JCH Optimise to combine CSS and JavaScript files but there was very little improvement on this particular website (your mileage may vary).
What did help
Apart from all the usual steps such as reducing the number of third party extensions, finding the fastest third party extensions, enabling GZip etc, there were two things that really helped:
1. Reducing the number of modules that are loaded
There were a few places where I was able to reduce the number of modules I was loading.
For example, I was able to combine several modules in the footer area (social sharing buttons, a footer menu, a copyright notice and developer credit, member signup and login buttons and a logo) into one Custom HTML module.
I used responsive classes supplied with the template so that the columns still worked well responsively.
I was able to use the same trick in another area of the template, reducing three modules into one.
This helped reduce the server wait time by a couple of seconds.
2. Upgraded Hosting
The website was still too slow, so I convinced the client to upgrade their SiteGround "Startup" hosting account to the "GrowBig" account which includes an option to enable dynamic cache.
Once dynamic cache was enabled, the server wait time reduced to under a second.
I am using dynamic cache on all my own websites and quite a few client websites and dynamic cache does not seem to interfere with CAPTCHA's etc or cause any other issues and I am using quite a range of different extensions.
I'm sure there are other improvements that can help but this is what worked for me.
answered Aug 23 '16 at 0:34
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thank a lot for your help.. i contacted my host company. they said they have dynamic cache enabled. now i should find and download the plugin. can u please give me the download link of the plugin that u used? – kiasaty Aug 23 '16 at 5:48
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See the "enable dynamic cache" link in the answer above for the instructions I used – Neil Robertson Aug 23 '16 at 5:53
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my host company doesn't provide the plugin :/ . they said i have to find it myself – kiasaty Aug 23 '16 at 6:07
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I think this is likely specific to the hosting company so the SiteGround dynamic cache plugin will be useless to you unless you are hosting with SiteGround. – Neil Robertson Aug 23 '16 at 6:32
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1as you said and i thought, it didn't work. i just wanted to try it. i think my host company doesn't have the "dynamic cache" function. i guess i should combine modules now. thanks a lot for your help :) – kiasaty Aug 24 '16 at 6:02
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You can also fine tune a lot with JCH Optimze Pro that will make a lot of improvement for speed. and also optimze your htaccess file for example with akeeba Admin Pro if you dont know how to optimimze your htaccess file for speed and security
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I'm using RSfirewall now. r u suggesting that i should uninstall rsfirewall and install akeeba admin pro? – kiasaty Aug 25 '16 at 6:18
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when i was uninstalling the jCGcache plugin, i saw "System - Page Cache" i enabled it and BOOM, Problem solved. server response time improved 2 seconds, and now it's under one second.
THANKS TO Neil Robertson FOR HELPING AND TELLING ME ABOUT CACHING.
