{"id":6752,"date":"2017-04-24T08:44:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T06:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/?p=6752"},"modified":"2017-05-30T11:30:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T09:30:19","slug":"8-tips-faster-drupal-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/8-tips-faster-drupal-website\/","title":{"rendered":"8 tips for a faster Drupal website"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As with other Content Management Systems, the speed at which your Drupal website loads depends on different factors that you can actually control. But what exactly should you consider? Thanks to these 8 handy tips, you too will have a faster and more efficient Drupal website!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Does you Drupal website load at a snail\u2019s pace? These 8 tips provided by Combell will give your website wings!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><strong>A fast Drupal website will be prioritised<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.drupal.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drupal<\/a>\u00a0is an open source CMS that, <a href=\"https:\/\/w3techs.com\/technologies\/overview\/content_management\/all\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to recent figures published by W3CTech<\/a>, is used by <strong>2.2%<\/strong>\u00a0of all websites worldwide. And it is used by <strong>4.8%<\/strong>\u00a0of all the CMS-based websites. Among famous websites that use Drupal are The Economist, Warner Brothers Records, as well as many others.<\/p>\n<p>With such a CMS, a page is generated on the fly (using content from the database) when a visitor lands on it. However, different factors can have a negative influence on how the generated page is displayed. How can you know if your site loads fast? Find out using:<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"su-list\" style=\"margin-left:0px\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-play\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> Google\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/speed\/pagespeed\/insights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PageSpeed Insights<\/a>: find problematic pages and analyse them<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-play\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.webpagetest.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Webpagetest.org<\/a>: get a full report on your CSS files, images and links<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-play\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/tools.pingdom.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pingdom<\/a>: discover the elements that slow down your website and get instant tips to resolve issues<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>Your website speed has a big influence on your\u00a0<strong>traffic<\/strong>, <strong>conversions<\/strong>, and <strong>earnings<\/strong>.\u00a0Remember that,\u00a0according to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-37100091\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dynatrace<\/a>, saving <strong>half a second<\/strong>\u00a0can make a <strong>10% difference<\/strong> in sales on your website. A fast Drupal website is also good for your\u00a0<strong>SEO<\/strong>, as load speed is a factor that search engines take into account when it comes to\u00a0<strong>search rankings<\/strong>\u00a0for your site. According to Google, websites\u00a0lose <strong>20%\u00a0<\/strong>of their traffic for every extra\u00a0<strong>100 milliseconds<\/strong>\u00a0a page needs to load.<\/p>\n<h2>But how can you make your Drupal website faster?<\/h2>\n<h3>1. Make sure your Drupal website always uses the latest version<\/h3>\n<p>Updates usually contain bug fixes and improve performance. Make sure that <strong>the core, the modules and the themes<\/strong> are always up to date.<\/p>\n<p>In order to perform updates, go to\u00a0<em>Reports<\/em>\u00a0&gt;<em>\u00a0Available Updates<\/em>. Then, click on <em>Check Manually<\/em>\u00a0to check for updates.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bs-callout bs-callout-success\">\n<p><strong>Tip:<\/strong> Make sure you also turn on your Automatic patching feature with Combell. This way, your files (scripts, PHP files, etc.) will be checked for malware and vulnerabilities and, if you want, they can be automatically fixed via an update. (You can also read: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/combells-automatic-patching-protects-your-website-at-all-times\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Combell\u2019s Automatic Patching protects your website at all times<\/a>\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>2. Optimise the images on your Drupal website<\/h3>\n<p>On average, images account for 56% of the weight of a web page. Optimising these images will thus significantly increase speed. Try this:<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"su-list\" style=\"margin-left:0px\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6755 size-medium\" title=\"8 tips for a faster Drupal website: optimise your images\" src=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website-287x300.png\" alt=\"8 tips for a faster Drupal website: optimise your images\" width=\"287\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website-287x300.png 287w, https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website.png 386w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 287px) 100vw, 287px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Adjust the <strong>compression ratio<\/strong>\u00a0(Drupal 6 and 7 use a default compression of 75%): go to\u00a0<em>Configuration<\/em>\u00a0&gt; <em>Image toolkit<\/em>, adjust the percentage, and click on<em>\u00a0Save Configuration<\/em><\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Use <strong>image optimization<\/strong>\u00a0modules, such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.drupal.org\/project\/imageapi_optimize\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Image Optimize<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.drupal.org\/project\/imagemagick\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Image Magick<\/a><\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Use the<strong>\u00a0Lazy Load Images<\/strong>\u00a0technique, thanks to which images are loaded only when visible in the browser window. The most popular module for this purpose is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drupal.org\/project\/lazyloader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Image LazyLoade<\/a>r<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Scale your images <strong>before uploading them<\/strong>; do not let CSS handle this task. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.drupal.org\/project\/image_resize_filter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Image Resize Filter<\/a>\u00a0module will help you do this.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div><\/p>\n<h3>3. Disabling unnecessary modules will make your Drupal website faster<\/h3>\n<p>As with all other CMS platforms, every default installation includes modules that you do not need. Disabling those modules will make your website faster. Experts recommend that you execute a maximum of 50 modules. Here are some modules you can disable:<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"su-list\" style=\"margin-left:0px\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> <strong>Statistics:<\/strong>\u00a0this module writes to your database every time the page is loaded. If you use Google Analytics, you do not need this module.<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> <strong>Administration development tools:<\/strong>\u00a0only necessary if you want to create extra tools by yourself<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> Other modules, depending on your needs: Devel, Devel node access, Field UI, Rules UI, Views UI, Module Filter, Blog, Forum, Taxonomy, Search, Help, Shortcut, Dashboard, Database Logging, Color, Toolbar and Tracker<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div><\/p>\n<h3>4. Do you have a Drupal website with an international audience? Use a CDN!<\/h3>\n<p>A Content Delivery Network is particularly important when your Drupal website attracts (many) visitors from all around the world. CDNs have proxy servers across the globe, so that the elements of your website (images, JavaScript, CSS) can be retrieved from these local servers and not from servers at the other end of the planet. Obviously, this will help you make your website faster.<\/p>\n<p>Popular services include <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cloudflare\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cloudflare<\/a>, which is free, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Akamai_Technologies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Akamai Technologies<\/a>, which is a paying solution (see also the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Content_delivery_network\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">comprehensive list of CDNs on Wikipedia<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>5. Optimise the MySQL and PHP of your Drupal website<\/h3>\n<p>Keep a clean MySQL database and delete unnecessary content. For concrete tips and scripts, please visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drupal.org\/docs\/7\/managing-site-performance\/optimizing-mysql\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drupal: Optimizing MySQL<\/a>. For most of your tables, insiders advise to use <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/InnoDB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InnoDB<\/a>\u00a0rather than <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/MyISAM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MyISAM<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bs-callout bs-callout-success\">\n<p><strong>Tip:<\/strong> Make sure you always use the latest version of PHP, which is faster than the previous versions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>6. Run the cron jobs on your Drupal website at off-peak times<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6761 size-full\" title=\" Run the cron jobs on your Drupal website at off-peak times\" src=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/Run-the-cron-jobs-on-your-Drupal-website-at-off-peak-times.png\" alt=\" Run the cron jobs on your Drupal website at off-peak times\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" \/>Cron jobs \u2013 tasks planned to be executed automatically at regular intervals \u2013 can dramatically slow down the operation of your Drupal website. <strong>Therefore, it is best to schedule tasks that need to be executed only once a day at off-peak times.<\/strong> Good examples include checking for updates of themes or modules, sending newsletters, etc.<\/p>\n<h3>7. Pick the right hosting for your Drupal website<\/h3>\n<p>Price should not be your main concern when choosing hosting for your Drupal website. Cheap but slow hosting can indeed cost you more than you bargained for! Go for fast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/hosting\/web-hosting\">SSD hosting<\/a>, such as that provided by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/hosting\/web-hosting\">Combell<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>Also, check the extras provided by the hosting provider.<\/h4>\n<p><div class=\"su-list\" style=\"margin-left:0px\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-check\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Does it only offer web space, or also advice provided by\u00a0<strong>Drupal experts<\/strong>\u00a0and a\u00a0<strong>ready-to-use Drupal installation<\/strong>?<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-check\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> What about SLAs? Which <strong>guarantees for uptime<\/strong>\u00a0do you get?<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-check\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Is<strong>\u00a024\/7 support\u00a0<\/strong>available in your language?<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-check\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Are there<strong>\u00a0advanced optimisation tools for Drupal<\/strong> such as Memcache, Varnish or Reddit?<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-check\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Can you use free <strong>Let&#8217;s Encrypt SSL certificates<\/strong>\u00a0that allow you to offer secure HTTPS pages?<\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-check\" style=\"color:#1dc05b\"><\/i> Is<strong>\u00a0HTTP\/2<\/strong> enabled? Because this new version of the HTTP protocol also influences your speed!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>If your current hosting is substandard, and if you are interested in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/hosting\/drupal-webhosting\">Drupal hosting services provided by Combell<\/a>, feel free to use the free transfer service that \u201cpacks\u201d your website and neatly transfers it to its new address.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>8. The most important tip to make your Drupal website faster: use a cache<\/h3>\n<p>With a website based on a content management system, you can ask yourself if it is r<strong>eally necessary that absolutely all the content is retrieved from the database every time a user visits a page\u2026<\/strong> Certain parts of the content have indeed remained unchanged over a certain period of time and could thus simply be served from a cache. This could give your website a huge boost in speed!<\/p>\n<p>Drupal allows you to use a cache at different levels; the tools for this are already built into Drupal itself but are turned off by default. You can choose from <strong>Page caching, Views Caching, Panel Caching, PHP caching, Browser Caching, Gzip Compression<\/strong> and <strong>Expire Headers<\/strong>.\u00a0For detailed instructions on how to turn on these tools, please visit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.keycdn.com\/blog\/speed-up-drupal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Keycdn.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, you can also use dedicated tools, such as Varnish and Redis. Read more about these tools in the following articles:<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"su-list\" style=\"margin-left:0px\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/lightning-fast-sites-with-varnish\/\">Lightning-fast sites with Varnish<\/a><\/li>\n<li><i class=\"sui sui-angle-double-right\" style=\"color:#1D88C0\"><\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/proxy-protocol-support-in-varnish\/\">PROXY protocol support in Varnish<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>For further tips to make your website faster, please refer to our (Dutch) e-book \u201cMyths on speed and what really works to make your site faster\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/on.combell.com\/nl\/ebooks\/mythes-over-snelheid-en-wat-wel-werkt-om-je-site-sneller-te-maken\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">downloadable for free<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"cta_button\" href=\"https:\/\/on.combell.com\/nl\/ebooks\/mythes-over-snelheid-en-wat-wel-werkt-om-je-site-sneller-te-maken\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Download the free e-book<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>So, do not wait any longer to give your Drupal website a boost! Also, check what <a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/hosting\/drupal-webhosting\">Combell\u2019s Drupal hosting<\/a>\u00a0offers you. <\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"bs-callout bs-callout-success\">\n<p><strong>Tip:<\/strong> Are you still unsure which CMS to choose? The article\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/drupal-vs-wordpress-vs-joomla\/\">Which CMS should you choose for your website: WordPress, Joomla or Drupal?<\/a>\u201d will help you get started.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As with other Content Management Systems, the speed at which your Drupal website loads depends on different factors that you can actually control. But what exactly should you consider? Thanks...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,63],"tags":[154,156,358,98,97,84,99],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner-50x50.png",50,50,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner-300x102.png",300,102,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"post-featured":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"post-featured-opt":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"post-featured-opt-md":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner.png",750,256,false],"post-featured-opt-sm":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner-485x165.png",485,165,true],"post-featured-opt-xs":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner-375x128.png",375,128,true],"post-most-popular":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner-50x50.png",50,50,true],"post-author":["https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/files\/2017\/04\/8-tips-for-a-faster-Drupal-website_banner-60x60.png",60,60,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Combell","author_link":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/author\/blogadmin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"As with other Content Management Systems, the speed at which your Drupal website loads depends on different factors that you can actually control. But what exactly should you consider? Thanks...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6752"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6829,"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6752\/revisions\/6829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.combell.com\/en\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}