Easy to setup, but slows down page load time

  • I like that this plugin is lightweight and very easy to configure. HOWEVER….

    I find it very frustrating that the plugin is scaling images using HTML, which causes slower load times, and is also not using properly optimizing images (see below). Using YSlow on my site How to Blog with Social Media Feather installed gave me a Grade D on Do not scale images in HTML, largely because the 7 png icons which Social Media Feather uses are 96×96, whereas a peek at the HTML clearly shows that each it displays one, the plugin is specifying a size of 48×48.

    Now, I assume this is so people using retina displays (which double the pixel amount shown in images) have sharp social media icons. However, how hard would it have been to simply include a set of 48×48 png icons, as well, and then call THOSE if the user is not using a retina enabled display? Scaling down larger images through HTML code is a no-no in my book.

    On top of that, when using Google Page Speed Insights, you will find that the png images provided by Social Media Feather are not properly optimized. Google says, “Properly formatting and compressing images can save many bytes of data” and it recommends Losslessly compressing all the icons from Social Media Feather. The amount of compression that Google Page Speed Insights says can be gained varies from 12% to a 40% reduction in size.

    While these may seem like trivial matters, the fact is that Google uses page load time as a pretty significant factor in its current ranking algorithms, so the slower your site is, the bigger the SEO hit you’re going to see.

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  • SMF creates 2 sets of image markup but these are hidden so that browsers won’t actually download the image files. Each set is selectively shown through CSS3 media queries, the higher resolution on high resolution displays and the lower resolution on standard screens.

    The PNG images are already highly optimized. I might have forgotten one or two but it’s simply metadata and the extra size is insignificant, we’re talking the likes of a few bytes per icon, network latency alone would cause a delay 1000 times more significant.

    I just wish people did at least a little research before leaving reviews with such claims, but I guess that’s too much to ask.

    Wow! fast load speed is the main reason I’m using SMF. I can’t speak to the coding, but I say that SMF did not slow my blog at all.

    Well, I must say I really like the plugin,the icons look great and it has a good, comprehensive setup. BUT using P3 to profile my site it is by far the plugin that is slowing down page load times the most. Maybe this is true of any plugin in this category, but if you were to improve upon this plugin, load time is where I would focus.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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