Step by Step guide to speed up your site!

V

vgchats

New Member
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
Points
0
There are several steps to improve your page loading speed. I will go over a few steps that will improve your site's loading time.
If you are a vbulletin owner you may contact me at vbulletin.org either on my article or from private messaging me.
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=267588

*NOTE: Some "steps" deleted from my regular article on vbulletin.org as they apply to vbulletin forums.

Step 1: Tweak your htaccess.
Open the htaccess file in your forum root and add the following below any url rewrite rules you may have from:
Vbulletin 3 or 4 with VBSEO installed
VB4 Forum Classic
VB4 Suite
VB3 by itself
Regular sites with no cms or url rewriting being done

This covers the following Pagespeed Rules.


Leverage browser caching
Specify a cache validator
Enable gzip compression


Make the following changes in your admincp


Code: 
This helps to cache nearly any file type that you may add in your attachment options (if you allow people to upload music files, zip files, rar files etc.. see the list lol)


A collection of various htaccess setups have been arranged in the attachment below.  Simply unzip & select which vb you are using.  I have included:



[LIST]
[*]vb3
[*]vb3 with clogic seo
[*]vb3 with yabbseo
[*]vb4 with or without cms
[*]vb3 & 4 with vbseo (untested with vb4 suite + vbseo)
[*]Regular sites with no cms or url rewriting being done
[/LIST]









Step 3: Optimize images
There is no more need to do this for vb4 packages unless you wish to do this on other images such as avatars, custom buttons, attachments, gallery uploads etc.


This covers the following PageSpeed Rules:


Optimize Images


If you have access to Visual Studio 2010 (grab the trial edition here which should be compatible with the addon), you can complete this step in just a few clicks using this addon
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a56eddd3-d79b-48ac-8c8f-2db06ade77c3?SRC=VSIDE


You can also use pnggauntlet which will compress images as well.


This is great to use on new skins/themes and also non animated gifs for Smileys, Signatures, Photo Album & Group Images and Avatars that your forum stores on your server!


Please note that both of these methods produce lossless images, meaning that even though it uses various methods to decrease file size there is absolutely no visual loss in quality of the image.


For non-windows users, I suggest Imageoptim & Trimage






Step 5: Use a CDN
Below are 3 free CDN's. I can vouch for cloudflare and google pagespeed service but have yet to try incapsula.


1) Incapsula
2) Cloudflare *Disable the Rocketloader feature to avoid potential issues.
3) Google PageSpeed Service *Recommended (Let it deliver js & css but not images!! You can and will lose your search rankings for images if you allow google pagespeed to deliver them!)



Enjoy!


Consider linking to us at http://video-game-chat.com/forum to help show your appreciation, since you'll be saving bandwith, reducing the loading time and thus keeping more visitors who visit your site. And impoving seo as google is now factoring in loading times into it's algorithms.


Test your page speed & yslow score's
If you would like to test your website and see what changes need to be made while you follow any part of this guide you can do so at several sites:


GTMetrix
Webpage Test
Pingdom

What can you do to help me?

Right now, I'm working on a project and I'm looking to expand it to every cms as possible. So far, vbulletin 3 and 4 with or without vbseo is covered, along
with wordpress and invision.
I'll be moving on to joomla, smf, mybb, phpbb, drupal, xenforo and other cms software that rewrites urls to a "friendly url" style.
What I request is the default htaccess for these softwares and if they use addition extensions/addons such as an seo suite (such as vbseo) then send me the htaccess file
that is included with said addons.
 
Last edited:
V

vgchats

New Member
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Here is the htaccess to help with caching. Simply remove all lines within an existing .htaccess files minus the friendly url rewrite rules (usually located at the top).

Remember to always make a backup first!!!
If you need help with getting this to work on forums, or other cms then post to me the backed up .htaccess and either post it or pm it to me.

Also note that when using this code in a .htaccess file, if you are using a cms/forum/blog etc that has a "enable gzip" option, turn it off!! This htaccess already has that covered! You can check this out for yourself by going to the links in the above post: GTMetrix, Webpage Test & Pingdom.
If you turn gzip on in your other cms/forum/blog etc... then you will be needlessly using additional cpu & memory and even possibly lead to longer page load times & server stress.

Code: 
# Author: Final Kaoss (aka: Extreme-Gaming)
# Version 2.7
# Special Thanks Goes to W3Total Cache for much of the htaccess rules
RewriteEngine on

# This file is only needed if you have set the Forum Component URL in your admincp and you are
# using the mod_rewrite option for friendly urls.  If this is the case, copy this file
# to your forum component stub directory.

# If you are having problems or are using VirtualDocumentRoot, uncomment this line and set it to your forum component directory.
# RewriteBase /vbtest/

# If you are having problems with the rewrite from content/ to content.php, uncomment this line to turn MultiViews off.
 Options -MultiViews



#Deny attempts to view the Htaccess file.
<Files .htaccess>
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>
# BEGIN Browser Caching/Headers
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
    AddType text/css .css
    AddType text/richtext .rtf .rtx
    AddType image/svg+xml .svg .svgz
    AddType text/plain .txt
    AddType text/xsd .xsd
    AddType text/xsl .xsl
    AddType video/asf .asf .asx .wax .wmv .wmx
    AddType video/avi .avi
    AddType image/bmp .bmp
    AddType application/java .class
    AddType video/divx .divx
    AddType application/msword .doc .docx
    AddType application/x-msdownload .exe
    AddType image/gif .gif
    AddType application/x-gzip .gz .gzip
    AddType image/x-icon .ico
    AddType image/jpeg .jpg .jpeg .jpe
    AddType application/vnd.ms-access .mdb
    AddType audio/midi .mid .midi
    AddType video/quicktime .mov .qt
    AddType audio/mpeg .mp3 .m4a
    AddType video/mp4 .mp4 .m4v
    AddType video/mpeg .mpeg .mpg .mpe
    AddType application/vnd.ms-project .mpp
    AddType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.database .odb
    AddType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.chart .odc
    AddType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.formula .odf
    AddType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics .odg
    AddType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation .odp
    AddType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet .ods
    AddType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text .odt
    AddType audio/ogg .ogg
    AddType application/pdf .pdf
    AddType image/png .png
    AddType application/vnd.ms-powerpoint .pot .pps .ppt .pptx
    AddType audio/x-realaudio .ra .ram
    AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf
    AddType application/x-tar .tar
    AddType image/tiff .tif .tiff
    AddType audio/wav .wav
    AddType audio/wma .wma
    AddType application/vnd.ms-write .wri
    AddType application/vnd.ms-excel .xla .xls .xlsx .xlt .xlw
    AddType application/zip .zip
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresByType text/css A2628000
    ExpiresByType text/richtext A3600
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml A3600
    ExpiresByType text/plain A3600
    ExpiresByType text/xsd A3600
    ExpiresByType text/xsl A3600
    ExpiresByType video/asf A2628000
    ExpiresByType video/avi A2628000
    ExpiresByType image/bmp A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/java A2628000
    ExpiresByType video/divx A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/msword A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/x-msdownload A2628000
    ExpiresByType image/gif A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/x-gzip A2628000
    ExpiresByType image/x-icon A2628000
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-access A2628000
    ExpiresByType audio/midi A2628000
    ExpiresByType video/quicktime A2628000
    ExpiresByType audio/mpeg A2628000
    ExpiresByType video/mp4 A2628000
    ExpiresByType video/mpeg A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-project A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.database A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.chart A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.formula A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text A2628000
    ExpiresByType audio/ogg A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/pdf A2628000
    ExpiresByType image/png A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-powerpoint A2628000
    ExpiresByType audio/x-realaudio A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/x-tar A2628000
    ExpiresByType image/tiff A2628000
    ExpiresByType audio/wav A2628000
    ExpiresByType audio/wma A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-write A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-excel A2628000
    ExpiresByType application/zip A2628000
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    <IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
        BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
        BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4.0[678] no-gzip
        BrowserMatch bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
        BrowserMatch bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
    </IfModule>
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
        Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
    </IfModule>
    <IfModule mod_filter.c>
        AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css application/x-javascript text/html text/richtext image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon
    </IfModule>
</IfModule>
<FilesMatch "\.(css|CSS|)$">
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
        Header set Pragma "public"
        Header append Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"
    </IfModule>
    FileETag MTime Size
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
         Header set X-Powered-By "Step by Step guide to speed up your VB4 (forum only)"
    </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\.(rtf|rtx|svg|svgz|txt|xsd|xsl|RTF|RTX|SVG|SVGZ|TXT|XSD|XSL|)$">
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
        Header set Pragma "public"
        Header append Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"
    </IfModule>
    FileETag MTime Size
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
         Header set X-Powered-By "Step by Step guide to speed up your VB4 (forum only)"
    </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\.(asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx|avi|bmp|class|divx|doc|docx|exe|gif|gz|gzip|ico|jpg|jpeg|jpe|mdb|mid|midi|mov|qt|mp3|m4a|mp4|m4v|mpeg|mpg|mpe|mpp|odb|odc|odf|odg|odp|ods|odt|ogg|pdf|png|pot|pps|ppt|pptx|ra|ram|swf|tar|tif|tiff|wav|wma|wri|xla|xls|xlsx|xlt|xlw|zip|ASF|ASX|WAX|WMV|WMX|AVI|BMP|CLASS|DIVX|DOC|DOCX|EXE|GIF|GZ|GZIP|ICO|JPG|JPEG|JPE|MDB|MID|MIDI|MOV|QT|MP3|M4A|MP4|M4V|MPEG|MPG|MPE|MPP|ODB|ODC|ODF|ODG|ODP|ODS|ODT|OGG|PDF|PNG|POT|PPS|PPT|PPTX|RA|RAM|SWF|TAR|TIF|TIFF|WAV|WMA|WRI|XLA|XLS|XLSX|XLT|XLW|ZIP)$">
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
        Header set Pragma "public"
        Header append Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"
    </IfModule>
    FileETag MTime Size
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
         Header set X-Powered-By "Step by Step guide to speed up your VB4 (forum only)"
    </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
# End Browser Caching/Headers
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top