Comments on: Optimize Performance of Your Site in 5 Simple Steps…for Free!

By: Rob Reynolds

Rob Reynolds — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 04:19:07 +0000

I’m curious to give this humminbgird plugin a try again. I’ve used it other times, but unfortunately I didn’t have a good result. But I saw the great evolution through the roadmap I have been following

By: Janette Burhans

Janette Burhans — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 13:42:02 +0000

In reply to Rosana Reyes. Hi, Rosana! Hummingbird is amazing! We have some helpful documentation that will give you a deeper understanding of its' capabilities. Also, these two articles have some great pointers: How To Optimize WordPress For Speed With Hummingbird -and- Cloudflare APO Integration Now Available in Hummingbird. :) Cheers!

By: Rosana Reyes

Rosana Reyes — Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:32:56 +0000

Hummingbird is my favorite WPMUDEV Plugin. The only thing is, that I don´t get all what Hummingbird can do. For instance … Mobile Settings. As I am not very familiar with most of the technical stuff, I am unable to get better results. The desktop rates are fine. Anyway … I ´m loving it ;)

By: Alfredo Galano Loyola

Alfredo Galano Loyola — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 00:12:38 +0000

In reply to Álvaro Novais.

Hello Álvaro Novais,

It’s really easy to check if hosting is part of the problem. You can use for example https://gtmetrix.com/reports/wpmudev.com/025P3d6F/ . (Consider creating a free account on GTMetrix)

The metrics related to hosting are TTFB (Time To First Byte)

TTFB = Redirect + Connect + Backend

Redirect -> As the name indicates if you use http://site.com and it redirects to https://site.com that will cause a delay, same if your home page redirects to another page using rules at the server level or any other kind of redirect. The best value here is 0.

Connect -> Is the time to ping the server from the location you( or tool) made the request. Less is better.

Backend -> This is the most complex, it will depend on the server resources, the PHP version, the amount and optimization of plugins, and the Theme in your site. The cache will help a lot to decrease the time used and save server resources.

For example:
WPMU DEV Site tested using Vancouver, Canada
Redirect = 0 ms
Connect = 42 ms (Could be bigger based on the Geo-location and Interned Speed)
Backend = 39 ms (That really low value means the page is cached)

TTFB = 0 ms + 42 ms + 39 ms = 81 ms

Any TTFB result under 600 ms could be considered a good value.

Another example: https://gtmetrix.com/reports/myblank.tempurl.host/CDdipqVm/

TTFB for my lab site(Bronze Plan, USA – EAST, Fresh WordPress, default Theme)

TTFB = 0 ms + 174 ms + 75 ms = 249 ms

If the sites are using cache system test using GTMetrix several times, for example 5 times, ignore the worst and the best value, calculate average of the other three results.

I hope this information helps you to find if indeed are the hosting server part of the problem.

Best regards,
Alfredo

By: Glenn

Glenn — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 06:58:46 +0000

Thanks so much for this post, I have been following the tips/steps and have noticed some improvements. Still more I can do, especially w.r.t. asset optimisation… mostly with assets contained within plugins, themes, etc. from various authors.

Being cautious with how I do this, don’t want to materially change someone else’s code and break something.

By: Álvaro Novais

Álvaro Novais — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 19:05:37 +0000

Hi Janette Burhans,

Thank you so much for posting “Optimize Performance of Your Site in 5 Simple Steps…for Free!”

This subject is extremely important to me, I still suffer from slowness on some sites, I believe it’s because of the hosting, since they are hosted on the same provider.

Regards,
Álvaro

By: Daniel Peres

Daniel Peres — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 14:56:21 +0000

Excellent content. I really know that Hummingbird has features that sometimes we need several plugins to be able to use it. For some reason, my tests with other plugins ended up having better results. I don’t know if in the last few updates these things have improved. But if they did improve, it made the plugin unbeatable.

By: Janette Burhans

Janette Burhans — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 12:48:59 +0000

In reply to Phil.

Thanks, Phil!

Glad you enjoyed the post—and Hummingbird!

Cheers,
Janette

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 02:49:20 +0000

A great blog post as usual! Hummingbird took me a while to master, but now that I did it’s a breeze and quite trustworthy