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Recently, my sites score completely dropped in site optimization/speed in the Google Adsense rating system. When using Google PageSpeed Insights it tells me quite a few things. One being to leverage browser caching. I went into my .htaccess file and added this bit of code.

## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 2 days"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

After adding this code to my .htaccess file I retested my website and saw that it is now asking me to leverage a bunch of jquery plugins. Which I might add were not there prior to adding the code to the .htaccess.

Google is also asking me to minify my CSS, HTML, and JS. Well, I downloaded a Wordpress plugin called Better Wordpress Minify, which is set to automatically minify HTML, CSS, and JS. After installing the plugin and retesting through Google Pagespeed I noticed that it is still asking me to minify a couple of things. Its asking me to minify the customscript.js in my theme, and wants me to minify the HTML of my homepage.

Google also asked me to compress my website so I downloaded WP HTTP Compression which seemed to compress almost everything except for two files: modernizr.min.js, and customscript.js.

I know this is a lot of information to take in, and I am probably asking for a lot, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  • 1
    What is your question? And can you provide your website URL?
    – Tim Fountain
    Apr 7, 2014 at 19:26
  • Hi, my URL is in my profile. To simplify, I would like to know how I can compress and minify said files as the plugins don't seem to be working on them.
    – Richard.S
    Apr 7, 2014 at 19:36
  • Relax! Google's PageSpeed won't recognize some kinds of improvements. The most important thing is to make your site faster.
    – user69389
    Aug 24, 2016 at 18:32

2 Answers 2

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From what I am reading, and the way you are describing it... you are already doing everything you can to improve performance.

I see no issues at all loading your website. Yes, Google is going to complain about some issues, and the bloat of WordPress also. Does it actually really matte that Google is complaining a little regarding your site? As long as the issues are dramatically decreasing performance, there is nothing more to worry about.

Also, Google's Standards are set quite high, for the record.

EDIT 1

Allow me to quote Matt Cutts from GoogleWebMasters regarding PageSpeed on his blog:

In fact, if you read the official blog post of GoogleWebMasters, you’ll notice that the current implementation mentions that fewer than 1% of search queries will change as a result of incorporating site speed into our ranking.

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  • My concern is that apparently page speed is taken into consideration for SEO. So if your page has a better speed ranking then it will do better in the serps. I am no SEO expert, but that's pretty much what I have been told.
    – Richard.S
    Apr 7, 2014 at 20:01
  • I just got to a computer to get the link regarding what Google Webmasters is saying regarding Page Speed, I added the edit to my answer to try to give you a better understanding.
    – user37204
    Apr 7, 2014 at 20:21
  • So with that information brought to my attention, what should I do? Continue to let Google tell me my site is not optimized? Its now telling me to Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content, to which I have almost no clue how to do.
    – Richard.S
    Apr 7, 2014 at 20:35
  • 1
    I would say, if you feel that you took all of the steps to improve it as much as you can, then you are good to go on taking no more action to try to improve performance. Also, don't let that stop you researching either, we are life-time learners.
    – user37204
    Apr 7, 2014 at 20:38
  • I appreciate the help and advice, wish I could give you some up votes, but I am too young :( hehe maybe if I see you a long the road one day when my reputation gets a little higher I can return the favor. Thanks.
    – Richard.S
    Apr 7, 2014 at 20:41
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The Wordpress plugin can't compress your javascript files as these aren't served by Wordpress, your Web server serves these files directly. I'd suggest trying to use mod_deflate for compression instead if your host has it installed. If so you can do this with a small change to your htaccess file (and you could then remove the WP plugin).

The slow initial response time seems to be an issue for your site, you might want to look into Wordpress caching plugins to improve this.

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  • I have WP Super Cache installed on the webpage, but it honestly does not seem to add any benefit.
    – Richard.S
    Apr 7, 2014 at 19:47

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