How you Optimize for Speed...
Sites need to be fast: when a user clicks on a link the page needs to appear as soon as possible. Fast sites make for both a smooth customer experience, and also give a better ranking in Google.
Speed optimization
Simple sites are often quite fast, but as they get more sophisticated – with numerous queries and images included, then things slow down.
The system provides several tools to mitigate against this slow-down, and to keep things running as fast as possible.
Query caching
This takes all the hard work done to build a View embedded on a Page, and saves it ready to be used the next time someone asks for the same page. On a busy site this can lead to major speed improvements.
To enable:
On your site go to Layout Manager / website tree site globe / Properties / Cache
and enter the number of minutes it should cache (ie remember) the results for.
That setting affects all Queries on your site, but you can also set individual cache durations on individual query Embeds.
Learn more (KB Article): Server-side caching of Embeds
Image resizing
With the rise of mobile broadband, the size of included images can be the major factor defining how long a page takes to appear to a user.
Unfortunately many people upload large images to website (sometimes multi-megabyte images direct from cameras) without considering the size issue. To solve this, when a Query includes an image with a specified display size (say a product image, sized to a thumbnail), the system will automatically reprocess the image at the server and only download the small version to the user. (Of course the full size version is still kept at the server – it might be needed elsewhere in a different size)
To enable:
This is enabled automatically; there are no settings required to enable it.
Learn more (KB Article): Server-side image resizing
Using AJAX
AJAX is a technology that allows your webpage to interact with a user without you having to deliver an entire new page each time they click on something. Instead, only a fragment is requested, which then modifies the appearance of the current page.
This provides a faster and smoother user experience, and places a lower load on the server.
To enable:
You make slight modifications to the Queries to embed on the Page, so that one page 'sends' AJAX signals that the other 'listens' for.
Learn more (KB Article): AJAX transitions
Other acceleration technologies
The system implements a range of automatic approaches to help speed up your sites: from other caching systems to compression of the pages before delivery. Generally these do not require any configuration.
