Better experience through optimisation of the loading time
The performance of a website is a decisive criterion with regard to the user experience, which in turn determines whether the website visitor stays longer and completes defined target projects. Our developers take great pleasure in optimising online projects and see it sportingly, because the better optimisation wins.
Ways to improve loading times
The speed of a website can be influenced by many means. Here is an overview of common options:
Browser caching
With the help of the Apache module “mod_expire” it is possible to specify very precisely after which time a browser should request a possibly updated version of a file type. Image data usually does not change. If a photo has been uploaded in the system, it is therefore not necessary to check whether there is a new version every time the page is called up; instead, the browser’s cached version can be used. So here we recommend at least an expiration date after several days.
Text content within the HTML structure should not remain in the cache for such a long time, if possible – especially when it comes to web pages with constantly changing content.
Compression
Another Apache module (mod_deflate) ensures that certain easily compressible content such as HTML, CSS and script files are more or less “zipped” before transmission in order to use less bandwidth.
Combining CSS/JS files
Depending on the project, it may be useful to combine different CSS and JS files into one larger file. So instead of loading many small files, only one slightly larger file needs to be loaded. However, especially with complex JavaScript applications, merging can also lead to problems.
Server side caching
To minimize complex and constant database queries, static images of rendered pages can be cached on the server side and then delivered to the user. Thus, the largest load is reduced to the initial creation of this image and all further calls are presented with the static version within a time-defined frame.
Lean and sustainable programming
Both the programming itself and the number and complexity of extensions used can slow down website systems unnecessarily. We check for possibly faster alternatives or whether some extensions can even be dispensed with altogether.