This document provides tips on how to speed up a Joomla site. It recommends both application level optimizations like enabling compression, caching, and minimizing images/CSS/JS, as well as server level optimizations such as using a CDN, opcode caching, and reverse proxy servers. Proper optimization can significantly improve page load times and site speeds. The document demonstrates the impact of various optimizations through metrics like load time, page size, and speed scores. Overall optimization is positioned as an ongoing process to keep sites running efficiently.

1. HOW TO SPEED UP YOUR
JOOMLA SITE?
Daniel Kanchev
Performance Guru

2. Before We Begin – Who’s That Guy Daniel?
✓ 7+ years of Joomla! experience
✓ 5 years with SiteGround
✓ Love travelling the world
✓ Addicted to extreme sports

3. ✓ Site speed affects your Google Rankings!
✓ Keep readers/customers happy & paying
✓ Be able to handle more visitors
✓ Go green and save $$$ from servers
WHY BOTHER DOING IT?

4. Faster Joomla = Optimizations
!
!
KEEP
CALMIT’S NOT
ROCKET
SCIENCE

5. ✓ Keep your Joomla! updated
✓ Choose extensions wisely
✓ Deactivate unused extensions, upgrade used
✓ Simplify your templates as much as possible
GENERAL GUIDELINES

6. Simple Front Page Is Better
✓ Fancy stuff – only if you really need it
✓ Remove unnecessary large images
✓ Use fewer internal/external links – add sitemap
✓ Avoid loading content from remote servers

7. APPLICATION LEVEL OPTIMIZATIONS

8. Enable Compression
✓ Natively supported by Joomla! – no extensions needed
✓ Requires mod_gzip/deflate to be enabled on the server ***
Site
Global
Configuration
Server

9. Enable Joomla! Cache
✓ Enable the “System – Cache” plugin

10. Recommended Cache Settings
Site
Global
Configuration
System
Cache Settings

11. Some .htaccess Magic
✓ Get the code:
http://goo.gl/ze09B
✓ How it works:
- Etag – Tells browsers that an image/unit does not need to be reloaded
- Expires Headers – Set different expiration dates for various file types
- AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE – minifies the compiled HTML source code

12. Some .htaccess Magic
✓ The code:
FileETag MTime Size
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/css application/javascript
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "now plus 1 hour"
ExpiresByType text/css "now plus 1 week“
ExpiresByType application/javascript "now plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "now plus 1 week”

13. More Optimizations: Images, CSS & JS
✓ Resize images – never upload 2560x1600 pictures
✓ Smush your images
✓ Minify and combine CSS and JS files
✓ Use image sprites

14. Sounds Nice, How Do I Begin?
✓ Use smush.it
✓ Photoshop/Fireworks
✓ Joomla! Extensions

15. Some Highly Rated Extensions
✓ JCH Optimize – Combines JS and CSS, Combines
images in sprites, Minify and Compress
✓ Jbetolo – same as above but + CDN support
✓ JotCache – improves the Joomla! built in Core
Cache
✓ Cache Cleaner – easily clean the cache from the
Joomla! admin panel

16. JCH Optimize
✓ Enable the “System – JCH Optimize” plugin

17. JCH Optimize Settings

18. Google mod_pagespeed
✓ An open-source Apache module - compress, combine and
cache
✓ Needs to be installed/configured by a System Administrator
✓ Available on SiteGround servers *

19. Check How’s Your Website Doing
✓ Google Page Speed Insights - http://goo.gl/zPkxx
✓ YSlow - http://goo.gl/qIios
✓ GTmetrix - http://gtmetrix.com/

20. Some Results – Default Joomla!
No
Optimizations
Cache/
Compression
.htaccess
rules
JCH
Page Load Time 1.61s 1.49s 1.32s 1.02s
Total Page Size 563KB 162KB 162KB 151KB
Number of Requests 35 35 35 19
Page Speed Grade F (41%) B (65%) B (87%) A (91%)
YSlow Grade C (70%) B (66%) B (86%) A (92%)

21. SERVER LEVEL OPTIMIZATIONS

22. Use CDN
!
YOUR VISITORS
LOCATION
MATTERS!

23. CDN Features
✓ CDN will make your website faster
✓ CDN will help avoid unneeded I/O on your hard drives
✓ CDN will appeal to both Google and your visitors

24. Software Tweaks
✓ Use fast and secure PHP like FastCGI
✓ Move PHP binaries to RAM
✓ Move TMP to RAM
✓ Move MySQL to a separate hard drive: RAID & SSD
✓ Enable MySQL query cache
✓ Use TMPFS for MySQL’s tmpdir

25. Opcode/Object Caching
✓ FastCGI + APC PHP extension
✓ Memcached and PHP/MySQL
✓ eAccelerator

26. Joomla Interaction with Your Database
✓ First request goes to the
database server

27. Object Caching
✓ First request goes to the
database server
✓ Objects are also stored
in Memcached

28. Object Caching
✓ All consecutive requests
are forwarded to the
Memcached server

29. How PHP works
! Scanning
! Lexing
! Parsing
! Compilation
! Opcode
! Execution

30. ! Opcode ! Execution
PHP Opcode Caching

31. Reverse Proxy Servers

32. Reverse Proxy Servers

33. Reverse Proxy Servers

34. Reverse Proxy Servers

35. ✓ Custom PHP/MySQL configuration
✓ Memcached/PHP APC
✓ Joomla! friendly reverse proxy setup
Our Own Solution: The SUPERCACHER

36. Final Results: Joomla + VirtueMart
No
Optimizations
Application Level
Optimizations
Server Level
Optimizations
Page Load Time 5.22s 3.49s 1.09s
Total Page Size 1.89MB 0.67MB 0.67MB
Number of Requests 76 28 28
Page Speed Grade F (41%) B (85%) A (92%)
YSlow Grade C (70%) B (84%) A (94%)

37. Some Key Takes
✓ Speed optimization is a process – do it regularly
✓ Always test!
✓ Choose a well optimized host

38. QUESTIONS
TIME
?

39. THANK YOU!
Daniel Kanchev
daniel.k@siteground.com