Shine Audit: Response Time

A website's response time refers to the amount of time it takes for the website's server to respond to a request from a user's browser. It's important because it affects the user experience and can impact a website's search engine ranking. 

A slow response time can lead to frustrated users who may leave the site and never return. Additionally, search engines like Google consider response time as a ranking factor, so a slow website may not rank as well in search results.

If a website takes more than 1 second to respond, it can cause problems and should be fixed. If the response time is higher, there's a higher chance that people will leave the website or application.

JavaScript code that blocks or delays the loading of a webpage is called "render-blocking JavaScript". This means that the page cannot be fully displayed until the JavaScript has finished loading, which can cause delays and slow down the page load time.

• Use inline JavaScript instead of external JavaScript files - use it less often to make your page load faster.
• Use asynchronous loading - load independently or separately from the other parts of the page. May cause issues since files are not loaded in order.
• Defer JavaScript loading - delays the loading of certain elements until the rest of the page is visible to the user.

A CDN, which stands for Content Delivery Network, is like a team of delivery people for websites. When you visit a website, all the images, videos, and text have to travel from the website's server to your computer. But sometimes, the website's server is far away from where you are, and that can make the website take a long time to load.

That's where a CDN comes in! A CDN is made up of a bunch of servers that are spread out all over the world. When you visit a website that uses a CDN, the CDN will send you all the pictures, videos, and text from the server that's closest to you. That way, everything can load faster and you don't have to wait as long for the website to appear on your screen.

CDNs are important because they help websites load faster and provide a better experience for users. Faster loading times can also help websites rank higher in search engines, which can be good for business.

Use CDN (Content Delivery Network). There are many examples of CDN (Content Delivery Network), some of the popular ones are:

1. Cloudflare
2. Akamai
3. Amazon CloudFront
4. Fastly
5. MaxCDN

These CDNs offer different services such as content delivery, security, and optimization for websites and web applications.

When you open a website, your computer asks the server to send all the information needed to show the website. It's like starting a car engine with a key. If the server is not working well, it takes longer to respond and slows down the website even if everything else is good. The quality of the web host can affect server performance. Cheaper web hosts provide shared servers where many websites share resources, so each site has to wait for its turn and might run slow.

Get a different hosting plan or switch to a different web hosting provider.

When a website has too much JavaScript, CSS, and images, it can cause a lot of requests to be sent to the server. This means that when someone visits the website, the server gets overwhelmed with requests to load all of the files. As a result, the website loads slowly.

To speed up a website, it's important to have fewer files to load on a page. One way to do this is by minifying CSS and JavaScript files, which makes them smaller and easier to download when loading a web page.

Large and heavy elements on a webpage can make the page load slower. 

Simplify your code by removing extra white spaces, unnecessary comments, inline stylings, and empty new lines. Compress your media files to reduce their size and improve loading times.

Caching is like creating a copy of your website's files that your browser stores. This copy is used to quickly show your website to users without having to load all the files again. Without caching, your website would have to reload everything every time someone visits it, which can make it slow and frustrating to use. Caching helps to make your website faster and more enjoyable for users.

You can implement caching in two ways: browser/HTTP caching and server-side caching. Both of these methods can significantly improve your website's speed. Additionally, many content management systems (CMS) have built-in caching solutions that you can use.