Articles tagged with “optimize”
- Improve Site Performance by Increasing PHP Memory for WordPress
- During the recent ASO server debacle, I raced frantically to restore functionality to Perishable Press. Along the way, one of the many tricks that I tried while trying to fix the dreaded “white screen of death” syndrome involved increasing the amount of PHP memory available to WordPress. This fix worked for me, but may not prove effective ...
- Permalink Evolution: Customize and Optimize Your Dated WordPress Permalinks
- How to streamline and maximize the effectiveness of your WordPress URLs by using htaccess to remove extraneous post-date information: years, months, and days..
Recently, there has been much discussion about whether or not to remove the post-date information from WordPress permalinks 1. Way back during the WordPress ...
- Optimizing Google Analytics Performance
- It has occurred to me lately that I no longer use Google Analytics for Perishable Press. Instead, I find myself keeping an eye on things using Mint almost exclusively. So, the question now is: do I continue serving the GA JavaScript to keep the profile active just in case I ever need the additional stats? I mean, Mint already does a ...
- Laser-Focused Feeds and Smarter Feed Management
- My current adventure into the fascinating realms of site redesign and optimization has yielded several chunks of fruit related to managing and delivering feed content. One of my primary concerns regarding the overhaul of Perishable Press is streamlined content delivery and rights management. An important area of convergence for these two factors involves the management and ...
- First 30 Days without Bad Behavior
- Approximately 30 days ago, I completely uninstalled the Bad Behavior plugin from Perishable Press. As you may recall, many Bad Behavior users were unexpectedly locked out of their own sites and forced to either uninstall or upgrade in order to fix the problem. Of course, in my perpetual battle to optimize and ...
- How to Enable the Default WordPress Object Cache
- Recently, while attempting to optimize site performance, I found myself experimenting with various caching mechanisms currently available for WordPress. Specifically, I explored each of the following caching options:
WP-Cache 2 [WordPress plugin]
WP Super Cache [WordPress plugin]
WordPress Object Cache [built-in caching mechanism]
While working with the two plugins, WP Cache 2 and Super Cache, I was pleased to discover crystal-clear instructions on each their respective sites. Having access to ...
- Optimize WordPress: Pure Code Alternatives for 7 Unnecessary Plugins
- In this article, my goal is to help you optimize WordPress by replacing a few common plugins with their correspondingly effective code equivalents. As we all know, WordPress can be a very resource-hungry piece of software, especially when running a million extraneous plugins. Often, many common plugins are designed to perform relatively simple tasks, such as redirect ...
- Focus on the Details: Optimizing Images for Humans and Machines
- In this article, I discuss how to get the most out of your site’s images by optimizing them for both people and search engines..
For many sites, images play an important role in the communication process. If used correctly, images have the power to make your articles come alive with clarity and vibrancy. Some visitors may merely notice the image and continue reading, while others will want to ...
- Prevent JavaScript Elements from Breaking Page Layout when Following Yahoo Performance Tip #6: Place Scripts at the Bottom
- By now, everyone is familiar with the Yahoo Developer Network’s 14 “best-practices” for speeding up your website. Certainly, many (if not all) of these performance optimization tips are ideal for high-traffic sites such as Yahoo or Google, but not all of them are recommended for smaller sites such as Perishable Press. Nonetheless, throughout the ...
- Perishable Press Site Renovation Strategy
- Now that my recent site overhaul project is nearly complete, I thought it would be useful to share my carefully developed “plan of attack.” The following seven-step strategy is designed to facilitate the entire renovation by logically ordering events and breaking down complex tasks. Upon execution, the following plan is designed to improve overall site functionality, presentation and structure, while factoring in several critical parameters:
Modular time ...
- Rethinking Site Functionality, Presentation, and Structure
- Two weeks ago, I decided to completely overhaul Perishable Press. The decision came after several months of smooth sailing with excellent site performance, an optimized theme, plenty of visitors, and even a comfortable posting schedule. All things considered, everything was peachy keen — until I began reflecting on the “big picture,” meditating upon certain aspects that are frequently taken for granted ...
- Notes and Tips for Better Social Bookmarking
- For those of you still hiding your bookmarks within the dark confines of your browser’s “favorites” menu, may I suggest stepping into the “here and now” with a fresh new approach: social bookmarking. Hopefully, most of my readers are already familiar with the many wonders of managing and sharing your bookmarks online, but for those who may still be questioning the whole idea, allow me to expound briefly on several of the immediate benefits:
Universal access to ...
- Five-Step Feed-Portfolio Makeover
- Recently, I found myself drowning in an ocean of RSS feeds. Even after switching to Google Reader, which definitely speeds up the process of plowing through posts, I was wasting too much time consuming subscribed content. Thus, in an effort to find balance between saving time and staying current, I executed the following five-step feed portfolio makeover:
Drop lame feeds. Previously, I had subscribed to a number of feeds simply because they were recommended or mentioned in ...
- Stop WordPress from Leaking PageRank to Admin Pages
- [ Keywords: wordpress, pagerank, pr, admin, pages, login, register, meta, robots, search, google ]
During the most recent Perishable Press redesign, I noticed that several of my WordPress admin pages had been assigned significant levels of PageRank. Not good. After some investigation, I realized that my ancient robots.txt rules were insufficient in preventing Google from indexing various WordPress admin pages. Specifically, the following pages have been indexed and subsequently assigned PageRank:
WP Admin Login Page
...
- Seven Ways to Beef Up Your Best Pages for the Next Google PR Update
- [ Keywords: pr, pagerank, page, rank, comments, posts, article, links, meta, seo, google ]
Time is running out! Soon, it will be time for the next Google PageRank (PR) update. While it is difficult to predict how your site will perform overall, it seems likely that your highest ranking pages will continue to rank well. The idea behind this article is to improve your site’s overall ...
- CSS Throwdown: Preload Images without JavaScript
- Clean, easy, effective. You don’t need no stinking JavaScript to preload your images. Nope. Try some tasty CSS and (X)HTML instead! Here’s how.. (only two steps!)
Step 1 — Place this in your CSS file:
div#preloaded-images {
position: absolute;
overflow: hidden;
left: -9999px;
top: -9999px;
height: 1px;
width: 1px;
}
Step 2 — Place this at the bottom ...
- SEO 101: Best Practices
- [ Keywords: seo, search, engine, optimization, optimize, websites, domains, links ]
After studying Peter Kent’s excellent book, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, several key methods emerged for optimizing websites for the search engines. Although the book is written for people who are new to the world of search engine optimization (SEO), many of the principles presented throughout the book remain important, fundamental practices even for ...
- Compressed JavaScript Compression
- [ Keywords: javascript, compression, compress, php, htaccess, gzip, ob_gzhandler ]
In this article, we extrapolate our favorite CSS-compression technique for JavaScript. Below, we outline the steps required to auto-compress your JavaScript documents via gzip and PHP. Two different compression methods are presented. The first method does not require htaccess, but rather involves the manual editing of JavaScript files. The second method employs htaccess to do ...
- Fast, Effective PHP Compression
- PHP compression is an excellent method of conserving bandwidth and reducing client download times. We have already discussed an excellent method for CSS compression, and in this article we share a super-easy technique for compressing all PHP content without editing a single file.
Using two PHP files and two corresponding lines of .htaccess, it is possible to compress your PHP files via gzip-encoding. Browsers and other user-agents capable of ...
- Flash-Detection Triple-Threat
- In our previous article, Alternate JavaScript Slideshow for SlideshowPro, we present an elaborate method for providing alternate content specifically for SlideshowPro. Although the method points toward a more generalized adaptation, its overall functional implementation remains focused on the presentation of slideshows.
This article explores the generalization of the previously defined method for providing alternate JavaScript content when Flash support is not detected. Using skyzyx.com’s excellent Flash-detection script, ...
- Alternate JavaScript Slideshow for SlideshowPro
- For the unenlightened, SlideshowPro (SP) is a Flash-based slideshow-authoring system that delivers full-featured, high-end, Flash-based slideshows. Websites featuring SP slideshows present content in sophisticated fashion, inspiring users with elegant captions, beautiful transitions, and intuitive navigation.
However, many visitors are unable to experience SP slideshows because they lack the requisite Flash support. SlideshowPro-based slideshows currently require Flash 7 or better to function. And, although Flash 7 is quite common, it is far from ubiquitous. In the ...
- Search Engine Registration Notes
- In his excellent book, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, Peter Kent explains that many search engines actually get their search results from one (or more) of the larger search engines, such as Google or The Open Directory Project. Therefore, the author concludes that it may not be necessary to spend endless hours registering with thousands of the smaller search sites. Rather, the author ...
- SEO 101: Establishing and Evolving an Effective Link Strategy
- Introduction
Optimizing your website for the search engines involves many important aspects including keyword development, search engine registration, and SEO logging. This Press post scopes yet another critical weapon in the SEO wars: establishing and evolving an effective link campaign.
Within your SEO log, you should devote an entire section to the logging of all link-related activity associated with optimizing your ...
- Cultivating a Successful Screenshot Archive
- Let’s face it. Websites are as transient as the wind. Developers and designers spend countless hours producing sites that may exist online for mere months or even less before being restructured, redesigned or removed completely, forever disappearing into eternal nothingness -- or, even worse, into the sterile void of a search engine database. Clearly not the best situation for designers looking to maintain a complete record of their online work.
Even for sites proactively encouraging their caching and ...
- Launch Multiple Programs with One Click
- Speed up your workflow by launching your favorite programs in one click using batch (.bat) files:
Create a folder and add shortcuts to your favorite programs.
Rename the shortcuts so that each consists of a single word.
Create a text file and change the name to something.bat.
Right-click on the .bat ("batch") file and select "Edit".
Emulate the following template according to your specific programs.
rem comments should begin with rem
rem note: this file launches all of my favorite ...
- WordPress on Crack: Tips for Faster Post Publishing
- Apparently, article posting is painfully slow on 2-ish versions of WordPress. Indeed, we finally got tired of waiting several minutes every time we published, saved, or edited a post.
After a bit of research, reading through countless complaints and suggested remedies, several key methods began to emerge. And, after taking the time to implement them, we have definitely enjoyed an substantial decrease in time required to publish, save, or edit posts.
Please ...
- Preloading Images with CSS and JavaScript
- Fast-loading pages reduce errors, conserve bandwidth, and please visitors. One way to decrease loading times and enhance performance involves maximizing image display efficiency. Your mantra for achieving image efficiency should be "reuse, optimize, and preload.". While each of these methods plays an important role, this article will focus on methods for preloading images. Consult your server error logs to identify web pages that may require image help. Note: preloading images does not reduce bandwidth! It only decreases ...
- Compressed CSS Compression
- In this article, we have consolidated the priceless information provided in fiftyfoureleven.com’s fine post, The Definitive Post on Gzipping your CSS, which discusses two practical methods for compressing CSS documents. Complete and utter credit for the contents of this article is hereby attributed to fiftyfoureleven.com.
Method One
Overview: This method involves adding a small PHP script to your CSS document and replacing its .css extension ...
- W3C Validation Services
- Here are the validation services currently provided by the W3C 1:
W3C Semantic Data Extractor
W3C Link Checker
W3C Site Valet Tools
W3C WebLight - Illumit
W3C Markup Validation Service
W3C CSS Validation Service
W3C RDF Validation Service
...
- Perishable Press Search Engine Optimization Library
- Welcome to Perishable Press! This article covers a plethora of search-engine optimization resources. For more excellent SEO information, check out the Optimization category archive. If you like what you see, I encourage you to subscribe to Perishable Press for a periodic dose of online enlightenment ;)
Search-Engine-Related Websites
pandia.com optimization...
- Roll Your Own SEO Log
- Introduction
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the business of every serious webmaster. The process of optimizing a website for the search engines involves much more than properly constructed document headers and anchor tags. Websites are like trees: their roots are the growing collection of content presented through the branching universe of the World Wide Web. Or something. The point is that optimizing a website requires nurturing the site itself while also ensuring proper ...
- SEO 101: Keyword Development and Deployment
- Keyword Development
Keywords play a vital role in search engine optimization (SEO), and -- if used properly -- have the potential to increase the flow of traffic to your site. It is beneficial to maintain an active list of keywords for each of your websites. Each list should be a continually evolving set of important, relevant keywords. The idea here is to develop a consistent practice of actively seeking better keywords, thereby producing your very own customized keyword ...
- Optimize Convoluted Code via JavaScript
- Search engines loathe crawling through convoluted lines of code. Oceans of complex JavaScript scare away the priceless indexing and archiving efforts of most major search engines, which will generally abort a crawl upon encountering such mess. The good news is that search engines actually do not deploy JavaScript, so it is possible to use JavaScript to hide those miles of messy code by using the fundamental document.write function.
Place this function in an external JavaScript file, “navmenu.js”:
function navMenu() ...