SEO and speed enhancements on existing site

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We have an existing site (http://www.evenwheelsolutions.com/) built on Concrete5. We have not been happy with the speed of the site and are looking for help from a knowledgeable C5 developer who can help increase ySlow and PageSpeed scores as well as assist with SEO and other search engine rankings. Thanks.

 
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
OK.

First off, you have several jquery plugins that cannot be found (easing, fancy box and cloud zoom), a couple of images and whatever an "htc" file is. Clear up these 404 errors and you get back about 4 seconds.

Next. find your .htaccess file and paste the following in before any rewrite rules (be sure to expand the code window "View entire code block." so that you can copy all of the code)
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
# compress text, html, javascript, css, xml:
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header unset Pragma


Once that is done, we can talk about optimisation.
fastcrash replied on at Permalink Reply
fastcrash
another cool stuff from phallanx, i will just put it in my htaccess, hehee..
mkly replied on at Permalink Reply
mkly
@Phallanx - Be a nice guy and at least tell them what happens when the edit their css with this htaccess file ;)
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
It doesn't do anything when you edit CSS.
Feel free to write a "How To"; I've already explained it on several threads and it is commented. It originally comes from here:
http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/chat/concrete-on-steroids...

If the OP doesn't know how to resolve missing files, a tutorial on Apache .htaccess is just going to confuse even more.
mkly replied on at Permalink Reply
mkly
@Phallanx Correct nothing will change because unless you change that file name the site visitor will use the old version.
programmieraffe replied on at Permalink Reply
programmieraffe
I understand what this htaccess does, but there is no other way to control the refresh process in the users browser than renaming the file right? (e.g. if customer says "please make the main area 10px wider", he won't see it). Or do I miss something?

(Of course I could tell him to clear his browsers cache)
Steevb replied on at Permalink Reply
Steevb
@programmieraffe, just ask them to refresh their browser, that's what I do, and I do it live while they're online.


@mkly, .htaccess has no effect on CSS, apart from compression?


@Phallanx, I use a .htc file to make IE play with my CSS3 styles for rounded corners and drop shadows, etc.
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
Ctrl + F5 will refresh and bypass the browser cash (IE, firefox). If you are using Miser, then a new file is generated anyway ;)
Steevb replied on at Permalink Reply
Steevb
My .htaccess looks like this:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
 SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
  <FilesMatch "\.(js|css|php|eot|ttf|otf|svg|html|)$">
     Header append Vary: Accept-Encoding
  </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
<FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "public"
Header set Expires "Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:00:00 GMT"
</FilesMatch>



little bit less code and I get a score of 96%, even with the things that I cannot control.

Out my hands: Some C5 stuff, Google Analytics and some Javascript.

@fastcrash, see how you do with that?

Mind you, I have modified some of the C5 stuff to helps me.
DtotheOR replied on at Permalink Reply
DtotheOR
Is this modification included with Miser? Or should this code be added to the .htaccess file in addition to using Miser?

Also, I'm not sure where the .htaccess file is. The only one I can find is in:
site_name\concrete\libraries\3rdparty\securimage\database

But I thought the file goes in the root directory. I've searched for hidden files as well and can't find it.
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
@DtotheOR
The .htaccess changes have nothing to do with Miser. It is server configuration to enable compression and header expiry info (if the modules are installed that is). It should be applied (or something similar) whether you use Miser or not.

If one doesn't exist, you can just create one (in your root). you should already have it if you use "pretty URLS" since that is where it is defined.
cannonf700 replied on at Permalink Reply 1 Attachment
cannonf700
Building off what Phallanx said attached is a screen shot of your errors which are really eating up your load speed.
jordohedge replied on at Permalink Reply
Thank you all for the responses. Unfortunately, I'm a complete newbie and don't know how to clean up the missing JS files. We had a designer create the site for us, so these things are a bit unknown to me. Any guidance would be appreciated!
fastcrash replied on at Permalink Reply
fastcrash
hooo~, you are the client after all :)
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
You best bet is to contact the designer and tell him that his Theme is missing some files. Get him to FTP into the site and make the changes. It should only take him two minutes and you paid for a working Theme, right?
jordohedge replied on at Permalink Reply
Correct. I will give it a try. Thanks for the help, all.
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
@55webdesign
Your missing one of the htc files too ;) Or rather, you have probably an extra un-needed reference to it that doesn't exist.
http://www.webpagetest.org/result/120202_CT_33497/...

These htc files. Are they performance killers like the eot ones? (i.e force the browser to download sequentially)
Steevb replied on at Permalink Reply
Steevb
Thanks for that, I had a bad path?

Webpagetest.org, nice resource.

htc no worse than some other elements, just sometimes a necessary evil.
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
@55webdesign
Indeed. However, there are only two (other?) elements that cause a browser to download sequentially rather than parallel. @imports and font files (eot). Miser finds the CSS for @imports and merges it into the file that references it (i.e removes the sequential bottle-neck). It can't do much about eot files, but I was wondering if it should also target these htc files and see if it can do something about them too.

I shall have to investigate further.
fastcrash replied on at Permalink Reply
fastcrash
Phallanx, how about using :
<META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="PUBLIC">


it's good to use this tag in C5?

abaout @import, so it's better to avoid using that because it's sequential?
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
@fastcrash
Well. That meta says the browser can cache (it's the default). META directives are the poor mans alternative if you have no control over the headers.

Unlike headers, which can be applied to different files, this one is for the entire page. So telling a browser not to cache means that images and other large content won't be cached either.

In addition (and probably more importantly). META directives aren't read by proxy caches (you can think of these, in terms of the end user, as a similar function to CDNS).

Yes. Avoid @imports if you can .The only time you are not penalised by them is if they appear in the page itself (and the wind is blowing in an arbitrary direction). Embedding them in a style-sheet is not recommended in terms of performance.
http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2009/04/09/dont-use-import/...

But you're using Miser right? So put as many in as you like and Miser will merge them ;)
jordohedge replied on at Permalink Reply
Hi all,
Thanks for the tips. Phallanx, I was able to make your htaccess changes. Unfortunately my designer has gone MIA and become unresponsive, so I have not been able to resolve the missing/bad links in the code.

Would anyone here be able to help with that for a small fee? I am clueless on how to find and fix the missing resources.
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
@jordohedge
If no one else jumps in. I'll take a look. But you are probably better off using the opportunity to forge a relationship with some of the designers in the forums.

You'll need to PM a FTP account to whoever you choose so they can edit the files though. Make sure it is a trusted member of the community.
ea1958 replied on at Permalink Reply
ea1958
Is "Miser" an add-on?
Also, to the SEO question, can anybody link a good thread if that has been addressed elsewhere?
Thanks Jordo, et al.
eric
sineofthetime.com
Phallanx replied on at Permalink Reply
Phallanx
@ea1958
Yes and no. It's an addon that is on sourceforge rather than in the concrete5 market place. The thread is here:
http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/customizing_c5/miser-web-...

A search for SEO in the forums will reveal a lot of links. It's one of those subjects where 2 people can have 3 opinions.

Later...lol Fastcrash beat me to it (living up to her name :) )
Tony replied on at Permalink Reply
Tony
ea1958 replied on at Permalink Reply
ea1958
Good stuff!
Thanks guys.
e