Improving Wordpress Performance
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I hate the modern concept of rating everything. Everything has to have a score these days. I get some help from an IT company and then they're asking 'how would you rate your call on a scale of 1-5'. Uuuurgh. Can you imagine Michelangelo asking people if they'd mind rating the Sistine Chapel so he could get useful feedback.
Sorry, rant over.
I agree, scores are bad. They are misleading. They are not 100% bad, but mostly bad. Look at review sites, the scores tell you almost nothing. It's just confusing. If you have scoring done by audited professionals, you can get good results. If you have anonymous scoring, you get garbage. And bad metrics are worse than no metrics.
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@thanksaj, sometimes you can place the js in the footer for later loading times.
I have not heard of the plugin and I just spent 30 minutes checking out. I am intrigued by it but at this time would not encourage a client to use it. There are too many "way cool plugin" type of reviews (everyone is drinking the Koolaid). Another metric, I haven't heard it mentioned in Moz or any of the LinkedIn WordPress groups I belong to.
I will be keeping my eye on this plugin and their webpage which has all the posts of everyone who uses the plugin.
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@technobabble said:
@thanksaj, sometimes you can place the js in the footer for later loading times.
I have not heard of the plugin and I just spent 30 minutes checking out. I am intrigued by it but at this time would not encourage a client to use it. There are too many "way cool plugin" type of reviews (everyone is drinking the Koolaid). Another metric, I haven't heard it mentioned in Moz or any of the LinkedIn WordPress groups I belong to.
I will be keeping my eye on this plugin and their webpage which has all the posts of everyone who uses the plugin.
Every item with significant load times, so 750ms or more, is pretty much something related to FeedWeb.
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I would remove that and just do without. Doesn't sound like it's adding big value.
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@thanksaj said:
@technobabble said:
@thanksaj, sometimes you can place the js in the footer for later loading times.
I have not heard of the plugin and I just spent 30 minutes checking out. I am intrigued by it but at this time would not encourage a client to use it. There are too many "way cool plugin" type of reviews (everyone is drinking the Koolaid). Another metric, I haven't heard it mentioned in Moz or any of the LinkedIn WordPress groups I belong to.
I will be keeping my eye on this plugin and their webpage which has all the posts of everyone who uses the plugin.
Every item with significant load times, so 750ms or more, is pretty much something related to FeedWeb.
Agreed and sometimes you have to trim the fat elsewhere and deal with the odd plugin IF it provides offsite SEO (good links). I will have to test on a new website using our hosting to see if I get the same performance hit.
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@technobabble said:
@thanksaj said:
@technobabble said:
@thanksaj, sometimes you can place the js in the footer for later loading times.
I have not heard of the plugin and I just spent 30 minutes checking out. I am intrigued by it but at this time would not encourage a client to use it. There are too many "way cool plugin" type of reviews (everyone is drinking the Koolaid). Another metric, I haven't heard it mentioned in Moz or any of the LinkedIn WordPress groups I belong to.
I will be keeping my eye on this plugin and their webpage which has all the posts of everyone who uses the plugin.
Every item with significant load times, so 750ms or more, is pretty much something related to FeedWeb.
Agreed and sometimes you have to trim the fat elsewhere and deal with the odd plugin IF it provides offsite SEO (good links). I will have to test on a new website using our hosting to see if I get the same performance hit.
It's not that it provides SEO for me. It allows me to see what people think of each article and get trends of if people agreed with me on any given article or disagreed, if they want to hear more about a given topic, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I would remove that and just do without. Doesn't sound like it's adding big value.
It gives me a lot of value. Otherwise, the articles are up but I don't get any feedback on them.
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@thanksaj said:
It gives me a lot of value. Otherwise, the articles are up but I don't get any feedback on them.
I understand but the value to you is less important than the value to readers.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
It gives me a lot of value. Otherwise, the articles are up but I don't get any feedback on them.
I understand but the value to you isn't less important than the value to readers.
I use the feedback I receive to figure out ideas for subsequent articles.
Also, did you mean to use "is" instead of "isn't"?
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@scottalanmiller said:
And bad metrics are worse than no metrics.
Indeed. It's also feedback from self-selected people. You only get feedback from the kind of people who like to tick a box to rate a blog post they've just read (idiots, basically!). That means your blog could end up being the kind of blog that appeals to the kind of people who like to tick a box to rate a blog post. Basically, you end up with a blog for idiots. That's fine if that's your intention.
It's a similar problem to the infamous Literary Digest poll
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I'm being slightly tongue in cheek calling them idiots.
I do think you should just blog about whatever you want to blog about, and not try and second guess your readers in order to become popular. If people like it, they like it, if they don't, they don't. You seem to be embarking on blogging as if it's a career, and I'm not sure any good can come from that.
You're young though, and I'm probably the wrong generation to understand all this stuff.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm being slightly tongue in cheek calling them idiots.
I do think you should just blog about whatever you want to blog about, and not try and second guess your readers in order to become popular. If people like it, they like it, if they don't, they don't. You seem to be embarking on blogging as if it's a career, and I'm not sure any good can come from that.
You're young though, and I'm probably the wrong generation to understand all this stuff.
I'll never be Trevor Pott who lives and dies by his blogging. But...I would like to do it on the side. I think that could be a lot of fun.
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@thanksaj ok...well you didn't need that plugin to do that. WP comes with the ability for people to comment and if you wanted ratings you could add using custom fields without the overhead of a plugin and its links.
Like this article from Smashing Magazine.
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@technobabble said:
@thanksaj ok...well you didn't need that plugin to do that. WP comes with the ability for people to comment and if you wanted ratings you could add using custom fields without the overhead of a plugin and its links.
Like this article from Smashing Magazine.
The problem is most people read the articles off the homepage, which means if they want to comment, they have to go to the actual post's page, which most won't/don't.
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@thanksaj 99% of people don't comment. I get about three comments a month on 30,000 reads. It's just not something that people do on articles. I have huge articles that have run on the main page of major publications for over a year without a comment. If you are expecting comments, your going down the wrong path. This isn't how you get them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj 99% of people don't comment. I get about three comments a month on 30,000 reads. It's just not something that people do on articles. I have huge articles that have run on the main page of major publications for over a year without a comment. If you are expecting comments, your going down the wrong path. This isn't how you get them.
Ok, then how do I go about garnering feedback? I like to know what people think of my articles and if they agree/disagree. It's limited with FeedWeb, but it's better than nothing without it. The numbers aren't spammed either, from what I can tell.
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A blog doesn't seem like something you do because you want to know what other people think of your posts, it's more just your own thoughts out there for the world to read, at least that's my take on it.
I guess it's the younger generations need to constantly have feedback - but do you really?
Things like Youtube, etc have pushed some into thinking they need constant feedback on everything - but again I ask, really? Why not just do something for yourself, share it on the interwebs, and who cares if others like it or not, comment or not.. you do it for you.
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@Dashrender said:
A blog doesn't seem like something you do because you want to know what other people think of your posts, it's more just your own thoughts out there for the world to read, at least that's my take on it.
I guess it's the younger generations need to constantly have feedback - but do you really?
It's not really a blog though. It's formatted as such, but it's not really what I'd define as a blog. I think blog, I think about an online diary basically.
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@thanksaj said:
It's not really a blog though. It's formatted as such, but it's not really what I'd define as a blog. I think blog, I think about an online diary basically.
What makes you different from a blog?
@scottalanmiller even said when his pieces are posted on major news outlets he doesn't get that much feedback/posts - so why would this be any different?
Where do you see tons of feedback/posts - mostly on teenie bobber places, i.e. Youtube.
If you want Spiceworks type feedback, you're going to have to write for a Spiceworks like site that already has a ton of visitors/posters.
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@Dashrender said:
@thanksaj said:
It's not really a blog though. It's formatted as such, but it's not really what I'd define as a blog. I think blog, I think about an online diary basically.
What makes you different from a blog?
@scottalanmiller even said when his pieces are posted on major news outlets he doesn't get that much feedback/posts - so why would this be any different?
Where do you see tons of feedback/posts - mostly on teenie bobber places, i.e. Youtube.
If you want Spiceworks type feedback, you're going to have to write for a Spiceworks like site that already has a ton of visitors/posters.
I know Scott said he doesn't get a lot of feedback but all he has is the comments. I'm looking for a way to gather feedback more actively than that. Some people might not need it, but I crave it, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
