General Topics > SEO

CSS Management, pageload speed, & BLOAT

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Basara:
Hello.

Just few thoughts... You chose wrong approach. Cleaning CSS for default template will break something in descktop or mobile browsers. There are a lot of thing you can miss.

Better approach, if you still think smaller css file give you some benefit, is develop new template from scratch with minimum css you need

 ;) up to You.

Geoffrey:
Hi, thanks for the feedback.

You make an important point that people should consider. 

I'm using a template extension, so the only css files I ever touch are the files in the extension folders.  I do not edit css files in default template folders. 

However, you can break the responsive capability either way. 

A few weeks ago, I used FireFox DustMe extension to evaluate my site.  Mostly what i learned: my site uses relatively few rules from bootstrap and onebyone css files, and almost none from font-awesome css file.  These three files account for about 70% of the total css load.  So if I cut the unused rules out of them, my total css load could be cut in half, maybe more. 

The css load is the last thing standing between me and a "fast site" score from Google. 

If I can try it local and test it for responsive function, no harm done. 

There are a lot of smart people in the world spending a reasonable amount of time discussing how to cut the bloat out of css boilerplate like bootstrap and font-awesome.  Who am I to say they are wasting their time?

As you know, I'm not a developer, so I think developing a template from scratch is not a better approach for me. 

Basara:
You forgot about what if you decide to add something to your site later? Some specific block or option or even 3rd party extension which expect your site have full rules?

Also google score is just a suggestion. Consider to improve your site other way:
1. deliver your css or javascript faster - some cdn or another server
2. Improve server response time
3. optimize your thumbnails images

This is much more important for google than "some unused css rules"

After all of this my suggestion is to spend your time and effort to unique description and images. No matter how you site is supper fast if your content not unique you will be down in search results. Improve descriptions... maybe add some custom meta titles etc.

Geoffrey:
Thanks for the advice. 

It's good advice.

For the benefit of future non-tech readers, I guess I'll add a few more comments.

If you make an effort to clean up CSS, your first step should be to backup and archive the full rule set.  You may need it if the cleanup breaks your site, and you may need it for future site mods.  It's not difficult to revert back to the full rule set.  Just delete the cleaned set, upload the full set, and edit head.tpl as needed.

Not to be argumentative, but a cdn is a geographically dispersed set of servers that attempts to load content to users faster by choosing servers closer to the user's location from which send all or parts of your content.  At nearly lightspeed, chopping 3000 miles off the content's journey will save less time than significantly reducing the filesize of the content.  I think cdn's must be a great idea for huge sites, but i see little potential benefit for small sites. 

If you're on a fast server already, this part of the job is already done. 

Optimize thumbs is a good idea.

Writing good content is essential. 
I worked hard to write good content, so i hope Basara's suggestion is more a general one, and not specifically directed at my site. :-)

If you choose a fast host, write good content, and optimize all images, and if everything else is running properly, your site will load fast. 
Mine does.  It's really pretty fast.

But if you want, you can also cut your css file load in half, combine and minify, and you will be even faster.  Does it matter?  Some say yes, some say no.  If you hack the css up, you risk losing responsive features or breaking your site.  That is why my original suggestion was to take a conservative approach. 

The uncss grunt was written by a google executive.  It has selectable levels and filters.  It is widely used. You can apply ignore blocks to all @media rules, etc, etc.  So if you spend just a little time during setup, it is quite possible to clean css without breaking AC, and it is always possible to revert. 

Closing comment: Basara gave good advice. 

 

jackluter:
 thanks for the advice Geoffrey.
Site speed can make or break conversion rates and impact your site’s revenue, so keep your page load time low by writing code semantically, use best practices and routinely cleaning up your CSS, HTML and images

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