Google have publicly declared that in 2010, page load time will be added as one of 200+ measurements that calculates Google search engine results page (SERP) ranking. So, page load time is now a calculative measurement in your search engine optimization (SEO) quest. Are you looking for higher traffic from Google and spending a lot of time building backliks? If you still never check your page load time or take any action to reduce load time, it is time to do so. Here is the list of widgets that I have deleted or disabled from Atniz.com
- Twittercounter
- Twitter widget showing latest tweets
- Tweetmeme button on each blog post
- Alexa ranking
- Socialspark and Izearanks codes
- Gravatar
Any third party programs need to wait for the server to reply and it affect our load time. Having more widgets definitely looks nice but visitors need to wait to get it loaded. I have removed Twitter related plugins and slow widgets as this are the most dragging icons. I noticed removing Alexa widget saves 1s in load time. Disabling gravatar in comment section saves another 2-3 seconds as some of the blog post contains more than 30 comments. Loading each gravatar image for all 30 comments takes a lot of time. Recently, I have reduced the number of images used on the blog and always keep the sizes smaller using wordpress image editor. Here is another set of wordpress plugins that will help you to reduce load time.
- Gzip
This plugin is not available in wordpress above 2.6 versions. It helps to drop some load time
- WP-Cache
This plugin also helps to reduce load time but not that significant
- WP-Minify
This is one of my favorite plugin. There are some problems with this plugin. It can’t read Alexa and Twittercounter widget and you need to create a folder name “cache” manually in your hosting account. For example://atniz/wp-contents/plugins/wp-minify/cache This plugin alone saves me almost 4s time in load time. It is worth to go this hassle.
My previous load time for Atniz.com was 14s using T1 (1.44Mbps) and after page load optimization, it loads at 5.73s on T1 Internet connection line. Check your website or blog load time now. Here, you can get detailed objects and its load time on your blog. Now, you can identify and remove those widgets that drag your page load time easily. What is your current load time and after optimization load time?
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Another tip, minimize using large image file and javascript on your blog! It makes your blog to load slow!
Thanks for the input.
Wow, this is a great thing to share! Thanks Atniz for introducing the plugin. I will try to use your favorite one.
You’re welcome Fatin. I hope your load time is faster now. Good luck!
great advantage for WordPress subscriber
Yes, it is. Now, they don’t have to wait a long time to read and comment on any wordpress blog that is optimized for load time.
Honey-Babe.net loads in 7.42s at T1 connection.
Sweet-Loves.net does in 14.19s at T1, so I guess I should optimize that one.
And n0t.info loads at 9.65s.
Thank you for sharing your resources and tips, Atniz!
Your honey-babe blog loads good without any optimization there. I’m sure you will get some good load time after the optimization.
I think so.
Also, I’m thinking of applying this alternative Alexa rank display widget, that would be more lightweight. I had found a script for that, but it has been discountinued and the code is no longer working. I’m looking for another one; when I find one, I’ll let you know about it if you wish.
I have completely removed Alexa ranking widget from this blog for now. But, I still don’t see any changes in it’s current ranking.
I’m a little worried about Google and load times. We have a lot of images on our site so am worried this might affect our rankings negatively.
Yes, it will. It is time to find for alternative way to handle those images. Use two type of image (small and give a link to larger ones) is my personal opinion.
Hi Atniz,
This is my newest personal blog.Anyway I’m using free wordpress for my blog so can’t do anything about the speed.
Thanks
TC
Yes, you can. Just avoid adding those time consuming widgets on your blog. It will be great help.
Thanks for the tip I heard of the first 2 but never of Minify.
Im upset that you took of Gravatar =/ I had a nice logo =p
I hope to place it back but it really drags a lot of time for most blog post considering the amount of blog comments it gets.
I will take a look what happen for my blog current loading speed in next update before i do some optimizing for it.
Hope you could see some difference here. Good luck!
I hope so. Thanks Atniz.
I am sure you will. Get rid of those unwanted images, widgets, etc. You will see the difference in no time.
http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/speed-up-wordpress/
just sayin’
Excellent write ups.
Google becomes strict recently, so what is other important measurements beside backlinks?
There are so many like
- domain
- load time
- relevancy
- etc