Hello @franks123
Thank you for your inquiry and I am happy to assist you with this.
The optimal W3 Total Cache configuration takes into account a number of factors: your theme, your plugins, the technologies available on the server, and the third-party resources that are loading on your website.
Based on a Google Page speed test, you need to eliminate render-blocking resources, especially CSS which can be done with the option “Eliminate render-blocking CSS by moving it to HTTP Body” which is available after upgrading to Pro. This of course means that you need to minify CSS first. However, Minification may not work as expected for some CSS or js files. Some CSS files are pre minified and don’t agree with being minified and in that case, cannot be eliminated as render-blocking by W3TC. This is also the case with some js files like jQuery as some files are dependant on Jquery and need to load after jQuery so the file needs to be excluded from minifying and therefore remain render-blocking.
The problem is that Page Speed Insights wants you to perform something called ‘Code splitting’. A part of that process means that you figure out what part of the CSS is required to display ‘above the fold’-content — the content you see when you first visit the page without scrolling — and separate that part into a different file. That way, you can load that file the usual way and defer the loading of other stylesheets. You can do the same with scripts by adding async/defer to the script tags. If you’ve done that correctly, the website can show the content a lot faster and loads the content that’s not visible right away afterward. This will improve the “FCP” score from 6.5 seconds to under 1 second.
The problem with the above-the-fold-content is that we cannot figure that out for you. We can only combine and minify the scripts and stylesheets to improve the overall loading time. If you want to apply code splitting, you need to disable JS and CSS minification entirely and ask someone with knowledge about code splitting to help you out. Your theme and possibly some plugins need to be modified to separate the above-the-fold styles into a separate file.
YOu also need to make sure that your server has enough resources to handle your website, meaning if you are on shared hosting, the resources are limited and there is no plugin that can fix this. Upgrading to VPS or a Dedicated server can save you a lot of headaches.
The last but most important thing is the third-party resources and in your case there a lot of those resources loading on your website.
Third-Party
Transfer Size
Main-Thread Blocking Time
Olark
642 KiB
938 ms
/jsclient-bucket5/application2.js?v=161…(static.olark.com)
473 KiB
902 ms
/jsclient/jquery.js(static.olark.com)
33 KiB
33 ms
…site/5680-205-10-1462.js?cb=161…(static.olark.com)
13 KiB
2 ms
/jsclient/app.js(static.olark.com)
18 KiB
1 ms
/jsclient/loader.js(static.olark.com)
4 KiB
1 ms
Other resources
101 KiB
0 ms
Sumo
214 KiB
185 ms
/73.7e83123….js(load.sumo.com)
99 KiB
134 ms
/0.7e83123….js(load.sumo.com)
3 KiB
51 ms
/14.7e83123….js(load.sumo.com)
51 KiB
0 ms
/72.7e83123….js(load.sumo.com)
43 KiB
0 ms
Other resources
17 KiB
0 ms
Facebook
95 KiB
51 ms
…config/192…?v=2.9.33&r=stable(connect.facebook.net)
70 KiB
48 ms
/en_US/fbevents.js(connect.facebook.net)
24 KiB
3 ms
Google Analytics
55 KiB
44 ms
/gtm/js?id=GTM-WNLXWW6&cid=913….161…(www.google-analytics.com)
33 KiB
39 ms
/analytics.js(www.google-analytics.com)
19 KiB
5 ms
Google Fonts
142 KiB
0 ms
…v13/BngMUXZYT….woff2(fonts.gstatic.com)
32 KiB
0 ms
…v9/-F6xfjBsI….woff2(fonts.gstatic.com)
16 KiB
0 ms
…v17/S6u9w4BMU….woff2(fonts.gstatic.com)
14 KiB
0 ms
…v17/S6uyw4BMU….woff2(fonts.gstatic.com)
14 KiB
0 ms
…v17/S6u9w4BMU….woff2(fonts.gstatic.com)
14 KiB
0 ms
Other resources
50 KiB
0 ms
Google Tag Manager
38 KiB
0 ms
/gtm.js?id=GTM-5VS9XN(www.googletagmanager.com)
38 KiB
0 ms
YouTube
23 KiB
0 ms
…yxePH9zRpKk/hqdefault.jpg(i.ytimg.com)
23 KiB
0 ms
Pinterest
21 KiB
0 ms
…lib/main.2a04f3ee.js(s.pinimg.com)
17 KiB
0 ms
LinkedIn Ads
4 KiB
0 ms
Other Google APIs/SDKs
3 KiB
0 ms
Google/Doubleclick Ads
1 KiB
0 ms
Drawbridge
1 KiB
0 ms
Using third-party JavaScript is often unavoidable, but there are things you can do to minimize adverse effects:
When choosing third-party resources, favor those that send the least amount of code while still giving you the functionality you need.
Use performance budgets for third-party content to keep their cost in check.
Don’t use the same functionality from two different vendors. You probably don’t need two tag managers or two analytics platforms.
Routinely audit and clean out redundant third-party scripts.
Thanks!
