Recently, I run a GT Metrix test on my blog and got an abysmal D score. After some investigation I noticed a few things that need improvement:
- Disqus was loading too many things that I really didn’t care for. This included ads.
- Many scripts, styles and images were not optimized nor entirely needed.
- No browser caching was implemented
To fix Disqus problem I removed it entirely, I really don’t like ads, specially how Disqus introduced them in their free offering. I’m evaluating an alternative option and will reintroduce commenting soon, I hope.
After round of improvements I was able to remove unnecessary scripts, styles, fonts and images. This included replacing SyntaxHighlighter in favor of Git Hub Gists and image compression using Tiny PNG. The image compression along saved about 40% in file transfer size.
There were more changes done but I don’t feel they made a whole lot of difference just yet. There will be more changes to come too as I find more opportunities.
If you are interested here is the commit with all the changes.
Cheers