This document provides a comprehensive guide on optimizing Joomla sites for speed, highlighting the importance of site speed for Google rankings and user satisfaction. It outlines best practices such as keeping Joomla updated, choosing extensions wisely, enabling compression, and using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). The document further elaborates on server-level optimizations and offers tools for checking site performance.

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

2. Before We Begin – Who’s That Guy Daniel?
ü 7+ years of Joomla! experience
ü 4 years with SiteGround
ü Love travelling the world
ü Addicted to extreme sports

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

4. Faster Joomla = Optimizations
KEEP
CALM
IT’S NOT
ROCKET
SCIENCE

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

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

8. APPLICATION LEVEL OPTIMIZATIONS

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

10. Enable Joomla! Cache
ü Enable the “System – Cache” plugin

11. Recommended Cache Settings
Site
Global Configuration
System
Cache Settings

12. Some .htaccess Magic
ü Get the code:
http://goo.gl/ze09B
ü 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

13. Some .htaccess Magic
ü 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”

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

15. Sounds Nice, How Do I Begin?
ü Use smush.it
ü Photoshop/Fireworks
ü Joomla! Extensions

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

17. JCH Optimize
ü Enable the “System – JCH Optimize” plugin

18. JCH Optimize Settings

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

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

21. 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%)

22. SERVER LEVEL OPTIMIZATIONS

23. Use CDN
YOUR VISITORS
LOCATION
MATTERS!

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

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

26. Opcode/Object Caching
ü FastCGI + APC PHP extension
ü Memcached and PHP/MySQL
ü eAccelerator

27. Joomla Interaction with Your Database
ü First request goes to the
database server

28. Object Caching
ü First request goes to the
database server
ü Objects are also stored
in Memcached

29. Object Caching
ü All consecutive requests
are forwarded to the
Memcached server

30. How PHP works
¤ Scanning
¤ Lexing
¤ Parsing
¤ Compilation
¤ Opcode
¤ Execution

31. ¤ Opcode ¤ Execution
PHP Opcode Caching

32. Reverse Proxy Servers

33. Reverse Proxy Servers

34. Reverse Proxy Servers

35. Reverse Proxy Servers

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

37. 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%)

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

39. QUESTIONS
TIME

40. Want a piece of the cake?
70% OFF discount
WWW.SITEGROUND.COM/WEBINAR

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