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Posts
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I have been an avid user of ENFOLD Theme since 2013 – 5 years! wow.
But recently I am looking at different Theme options to replace ENFOLDs for several reasons, the main reason is page speed load times.Regardless of the combination of WordPress Cache Plugin, Merge Minify Plugins, Cloudflare – I just can’t get a decent Performance Grade or Load time using a basic install of ENFOLDs.
After wasting several days on combinations of the above on my client’s website – I started again – and did a basic scan of the core theme demo sites. You will be amazed by the results.
ENFOLD
https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/FD4cW/http://kriesi.at/themes/enfold-2017/
I just tested http://kriesi.at/themes/enfold-2017/ with the Full Page test in Pingdom Tools.
This specific test was done on May 17 at 10:48:46 from Melbourne, Australia.
The web page took 15.18 s to load, used 87 requests, and weighed in at 5.1 MB.
The Google Page Speed performance grade for this web page is 89/100.AVADA
https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/dFDcI9/https://avada.theme-fusion.com/
I just tested https://avada.theme-fusion.com/ with the Full Page test in Pingdom Tools.
This specific test was done on May 17 at 10:34:37 from Melbourne, Australia.
The web page took 2.42 s to load, used 109 requests, and weighed in at 2.7 MB.
The Google Page Speed performance grade for this web page is 96/100.Now with Enfolds, 89/100 performance grade is not bad, but it’s not great either. Try adding a few plugins to your own site and then see how the performance grade drops of dramatically.
Enfold was the first theme on Envato to reach $1M in sales. I thought this was so great, I even sent a personal congratulation email to Kriesi.However, in recent times AVADA has surpassed this exponentially. Even the theme information promotes “made for Speed” with a PageSpeed Score A (99%)^.
Regrettably, I am in the middle of building my first custom website using AVADA and have yet to complete a more thorough comparison of the same site, same plugins theme vs theme ENFOLD VS AVADA. I will hopefully paste back a response once this is completed.
NOW Support has suggested the following plugin combination which Kriesi uses on the demo sites.
https://kriesi.at/support/topic/enfold-minify-javascript-and-css/
https://kriesi.at/support/topic/pagespeed-performance-minify-async-etc/BWP Minify plugin (has not been updated for 2 years)
WP Super Cache
Common! there have to be more modern plugins doing a better job than this.
With a little searching, I came across this interesting article about WordPress speed optimisation.
This article included a Facebook Poll on the best WordPress Cache Plugin
http://omm.onlinemedia.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WP-Rocket-Review.pngNow I ‘m no expert – but with AVADA 325,063 sales vs ENFOLD 124,199 sales, Enfold’s has fallen behind in the theme page speed optimisation race and if not fixed soon – will lose many more sales to better-optimised themes.
Support – it has been a long time coming – I think it would be advantageous if Kriesi provided the following:
1. A complete guide (including settings) to get the best performance out of Enfolds, using suggested Cache plugins, minify plugins, optional Free CloudFlare and option CDN
2. Completely reoptimize the theme for speed.I look forward to a healthy discussion on how ENFOLD’s can be improved.
Hey HuxburyQuinn,
I just ran the same test and the page loaded in 1.29 seconds: https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/dFRzJi/http://kriesi.at/themes/enfold-2017/. You can’t rely too much on tests like that to find out the real speeds and load times unfortunately, though it is a good indicator.
We could write a guide like what you are asking for, but it’s very difficult to provide a general solution for all sites since there are too many configurations to account for unfortunately. We’d be happy to help you out though if you have any questions for a specific site.
Best regards,
RikardHi Rikard,
You’re in California and the server is in California. now that’s just cheating – how about you try it from Australia.Are you able to share trade secrets and provide a screen shot of Kriesi’s BWP-Minify setting tabs and especially the Manage enqueued JS files?
Which files do I need to keep in the header and which can be deferred and which CSS file should not be minified – so that the page load quickly without affecting Layerslider, Masonry Grid and effects animations?
Would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
Hi,
Where I am is irrelevant in that test, I’m only initiating it just like you are. My test was from a server in Stockholm, Sweden and the kriesi.at server is located in Germany which is fairly close. I got higher load times when testing from the Australian server though, that is to be expected of course since the long distance between the two machines.
I’ll have a look to see what our settings are.
Best regards,
RikardHi Rikard,
and the enqueue scripts screen ?
I’m almost there after find this helpful article – which would have been good to know.
The theme itself isn’t too bad. Even though you focus on the theme you should consider other options too. Such as using HTTP2 (which will really help when serving that many requests), using a CDN and so on. CloudFlare for example could solve many of your issues at once and if you want to serve users around the globe it will help you a lot. They have also got some paid options which will increase the performance even more, not sure what your requirements and budget is.
How fast a webpage loads also heavily depends on your server configuration. While you are only focussing on wordpress configurations you forget about the webserver itself (nginx with a decent configuration is recommended) the PHP modules (such as mod_pagespeed which does a lot of minifying for you) and especially the PHP module – 1. Use PHP 7.1 and use PHP-FPM with a decent pool configuration.
If you don’t have a dedicated server you need to make sure you are using a very decent hoster. Most popular hosters don’t offer that benefits as they prefer serving lots of users for a cheap price instead of high quality hosting. I hope that will help
ENFOLDS – SPEED OPTIMISATION
HOST: AWS Sever | Apache | CPANEL | m3.medium | 3.75G RAM
WORDPRESS: 4.7.5
ENFOLDS: 4.0.2TARGET:
Homepage and other pages with the following ENFOLDS elements, reviewed and tested.- LayerSlider WP
- Avia Layout Builder – Masonry Grid Build Animation and Interaction
- Avia Layout Builder – List icon animation
- Avia Layout Builder – Media – Image Load Animation and Hover
- Google Fonts
- Google Analytics
- Google Map API
Full Page test in Pingdom Tools.
https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/b3wuUu/http://www.acahomeloans.com.au
This specific test was done on May 21 at 09:39:11 from Melbourne, Australia.
The web page took 590 ms to load, used 112 requests, and weighed in at 712.1 kB.
The Google Page Speed performance grade for this web page is 96/100.Final Implementation…
———————————————————–
WP-Rocket
The functionality WP-Rocket adds – is done by updating your .htaccess file. in-depth explanation later.
WP-Rocket | Basic Options | Files optimisation: HTML + Inline CSS + Inline JS
WP-Rocket | Advanced Options
Static Resources: Remove Query Strings – YES
Prefetch DNS requests:- //fonts.googleapis.com
- //maps.googleapis.com
- //ajax.googleapis.com
- //csi.gstatic.com
WP-Rocket | Preload | Activate preload bot: Automatic | Sitemap preloading: Activate the sitemap preloading + Yoast SEO XML sitemap
———————————————————–
WPMU DEV – HUMMING BIRD
CSS and JS Include + Minifiy + Combine + script header footer re-positioning
Why Humming Bird? Humming Bird’s minify script was the only one out of so many minify plugins that did not introduce Enfolds animation and stylings display issues after concatenation – more in-depth explanation coming later.
———————————————————–
VENDI CACHE
This use to be WordFence Falcon Cache – which does an amazing job of serving cached static html version of your pages.
Vendi Cache | Cache Mode : 30 to 50 Times speed increase
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CLOUDFLARE
Free version of CloudFare
CloudFlare | Speed | Auto Minify: Javscript + CSS + HTML
Rocket Loader – OFF
Rocket loader kills LayerSlider WP and other Enfold JS sliders. You can create a page rule so that Rocket Loader is not active on the pages that have sliders – so that the rest of your content pages are not affected.
———————————————————–I’ll try and create a definite guide to ENFOLDS optimisation, which plugins tested, pros and cons.
Back soon.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Hi,
Thanks a lot for the extensive report, much appreciated :-)
I checked our settings on the enqueue scripts screen by the way, we are running the default values there.
Best regards,
RikardHey guys!!
I’m back to increasing page speed again after one of my clients has been selected to participate on the Google User First Beta Program but cannot because of page speed.
The only pieces missing are all about deferring javascripts and css. Is it possible to have the list shared earlier in response to:
“Which files do I need to keep in the header and which can be deferred and which CSS file should not be minified – so that the page load quickly without affecting Layerslider, Masonry Grid and effects animations?”
Thank you so much for your help!
Havi
Hi Havi,
My site is running so pretty heavy JS Calculators which slow down the site considerably. I can’t do any thing about that until the original plugin programmer updates how assets are loaded. So desktop is OK but on Mobile, I get a bad result because of “Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content”
If I take out the calculators – everything is clean and works 98%.Please see screenshot of my settings from HummingBird
http://tinypic.com/r/2hoi4yb/9
JS and CSS minification
1. Do a Google PageSpeed Insights on your site
2. Scroll to the bottom of the results page and look for this “Download optimized image, JavaScript, and CSS resources for this page.”
3. Click on the link and a ZIP folder will be download with all your compressed assets. Unzip.
4. Re-upload the minified assets to your site.From memory, using this method, the CSS and JS minification does not concatenate the source – which breaks most AVIA CSS and JS file functionality. The compressed minify file is similar to the results produced by Hummingbird.
Let me know how you go.
And please share any workarounds and fixes that you discover.
HI HuxburyQuinn!!
Thank you!! I have a call with my server support and I will take advantage of it and see if they can install the Google Page Speed Module on a test site. They promise adjusting the server settings automatically for speed.
My site loads in 1.1sec has only 45 requests and 800K – the experience is fantastic and I don’t think they are considering all aspects in this formula. I did all this with my own Storm server that runs Nginx and cPanel with a lot of bells and whistles for optimal performance. No CDN (it’s slower than my server) Measured it and took it out immediately.
Have you installed AMP?
I am always afraid to install the zip files from Google Page Speed Insights as they don’t know what ruins the site and what doesn’t but I will also try it on a test site and tell you what I find.
I will also test your Hummingbird but can you also share the js and css that should never be deferred? It will definitely make my job easier. You know what I mean.
Thank you so much!!
Havi
Hi Havi,
I am always afraid to install the zip files from Google Page Speed Insights
Your not installing ZIP files.
Do your Page Speed Test here:
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/Your download the ZIP file, extract the ZIP contents on your local machine, then selecting which JS, CSS, images etc you want to FTP upload and replace on your wordpress site.
check out my post here:
https://kriesi.at/support/topic/seo-google-page-insights-blocking-rendering-ressources-above-the-fold/page/2/#post-848974Then refer to the Hummingbird settings screenshot.
Thank you Basilis!!
And thank you HuxburyQuinn!!
Apologies for shortening my message. I know I’m not installing the zip files but its contents. Still I am always wary that they will break the look of the site. AI is not as intelligent as they make it think it is. That’s why I’ll do it on a test site. I’ll keep you posted about what I find.
Cheers!!!
Havi
Hi Havi,
Thanks for the feedback, let us know if you should need any further help on the topic.
Best regards,
RikardI ran the exact same website using the Enfold theme (cloned) on multiple hosting accounts and got completely different results from them all using Pingdom. The hosting account you are using has to be a good fit for your individual setup. You can ask 10 different people which hosting account is the best and you may get different answers from them all and they may all be right because it is a good hosting account for their individual setup.
I suggest cloning your site and testing on on different hosting accounts with your current provider and even a few other providers to see which one is the best for your setup!Best of luck!!
Hi Micheal0424,
Thanks for sharing, much appreciated.
If anyone should have the need for additional help speeding up their site I can recommend contacting a service like SteadyWP.
Best regards,
Rikard
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