Joomla is one of the richest frameworks on the web. Easy to develop, integrate and launch both simple and complex websites, its flexibility and user-friendly interface makes it an incredibly popular content management system. Not to mention one that has also birthed a strong community and many extensions.
One question remains in the midst of such success however. The issue of speed.
Where Joomla itself isn’t necessarily slow, its when customising it that it can slow down, coupled with ever expanding sites hungry for data. Luckily optimising Joomla isn’t too complex as there are a fair number of things you can do.
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Plugins
Plugins can really help add extra functionality to your site but you want to ensure you only use the plugins you think are absolutely necessary and eliminate and remove the deadweight. Overloading your site with plugins is one way of slowing down Joomla’s performance.
Template
Joomla is one of the richest frameworks on the web. Easy to develop, integrate and launch both simple and complex websites, its flexibility and user-friendly interface makes it an incredibly popular content management system. Not to mention one that has also birthed a strong community and many extensions. With these extensions in mind, Joomla’s module capabilities also spread to online commerce, with newer online payment options such as paysafecard now becoming available through VirtueMart 2
Code Optimization
Cleaning up your code is a pretty important step in helping to ease Joomla along and get the best out of it. Backup your CSS and Javascript files, run them through optimisers and reduce their file sizes. Manually scan the code to see if there aren’t redundant elements causing complications too.
Related: Beginner’s Tutorials for various Content Management Systems
Images
Both HTML and CSS images can be huge culprits when it comes to causing upsets within Joomla. Take care to never get your browser to scale large dimension images for you and resize appropriately and ‘save for web’, especially if you’re using photo editing software.
Inside Joomla
Clean up inside Joomla itself by removing all plugins, components and modules you neither require nor use. Once complete, check the database tables for old modules and remove as required. Head to the database tables and optimize and repair using PhpMyAdmin.
Combine CSS and JS Files
Combining your CSS and Javascript files together can really help speed up Joomla by reducing HTTP requests and overall file sized. Use tools like Minify can help do this directly from the root directory of Joomla itself.
Gzip and Cache
Another great trip you can try to speed things along is to compress your pages use Gzip Compression which can help shank your site’s pages between 70 and 80 percent. Doing this from Global Configuration in the Server tab can really help reduce your bandwidth and create faster page loads. Couple that with enabling the ‘System Cache’ plugin and you can get even more benefit.
Hopefully the aforementioned tips can help fine tune Joomla and get your website running smoother and faster than ever.
