Server response time: restructure the site or create the new one? SEO opinions needed.

[Ryan_V]

Hi everyone,

The internal structure of our existing site increase server response time (6 sec) which is way below Google 0.2sec standards and also make prospects leave the site before it's loaded.

Now we have two options (same price):

• restructure the site's modules, panels etc
• create new site (recommended by developers)
  Both options will extend the same design and functionality.

I just wanted to know which option SEO community will recommend?

[LesleyPaone]

Server response time is tied to two factors. The first one is the DNS look up, the second one is the time it takes your server to generate a page and spit it out. Generally both of those can be improved without having to redesign your site. What is your site currently developed in? Is it constantly changing?

[Ryan_V]

It's Drupal 7. We don't redesign, we're restructuring. Yes, server takes too much time to generate the pages, they're dynamic.

[LesleyPaone]

I am not familiar with Drupal, when you say you are restructuring is that something internal in Drupal? Or does that mean you are changing the page structure of your site, like for instance moving pages around? Or are you removing some widgets and things like that from pages?

[ClaytonJ]

Lesley is correct it is important to understand why the issues before you move forward.

I am not sure if you are familiar with tools.pingdom.com - but free test your site on tools.pingdom.  Then review the performance tab - and see what your loading problems are.  Also .2 of a second is best in class - if you can get below 2 seconds I would be happy with that. Not suggesting you do not go for .2 - just that it is onerous and likely not time efficient.

The positive is I have seen several times dropping a site from 6 seconds to 2 seconds gets me an uplift in rankings without doing anything else!

[Ryan_V]

John, thanks for the tool. Site has multiple CSS for the same types of content, too much of different modules, panels and blocks for the simple site. Btw, in Google page speed test it shows different time speed in the range between 2.1 sec and 6,5 sec. Have you ever seen this dependency?

[ClaytonJ]

Ryan

Yes. I do not worry about the speed variations - there are too many variables on each test. ie Which server did the test use?

My view on page speed is forget "time" and "time ranges" on various tools. If you have identified page speed as issue which you have focus on what you know you can and should fix. Don't just fix the minimum - on page speed fix the maximum. I believe page speed is a key factor on ranking.

[Ryan_V]

We'll make it as fast as possible! Thanks John. Just need to figure out if we should restructure the existing site, or make it from scratch.

[LesleyPaone]

There is one huge thing that is being missed here by both of you. The Google Insight grades on server response time. Server response time has no bearing on if a site loads 1 css file or 30 css files. It has not bearing on how many js files are loaded and if the parsing of them is deferred or not. If you follow all of the suggestions that pingdom gives you to the T, it will not affect your server response time one bit.

The only way to affect your server response time is going to be to reduce the processing time of your site. Not the loading time in the browser. To reduce your server response time you are going to have to explore server caching, mysql optimization, and things such as that.

This might help to read as well.

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2383341?hl=en

http://www.blogaid.net/server-response-time-vs-page-load-time-for-google-crawl

[hectormainar]

Hello.

Before starting from scratch, try to optimize Drupal. You have some simple things to do which speed Drupal amazingly:

• Go to Administer » Site configuration » Performance page, enable the option ""Aggregate and compress CSS files." and "Aggregate Javascript Files".
• On the same page, activate the cache: "Cache page for anonymous users" and "Cache blocks".

Try if it helps while you find the source of the problem.

[ClaytonJ]

Yes, correct - multiple CCS files & javascript will not affect server response time - I think ryan was referring to page load speed.