Server optimisation and caching

[TRF_Fullback]

Hi,

As of around 1pm (GMT) today we've implemented several important behind the scenes changes, aimed at speeding up the site.

Doing before and after testing on Google's Page Insights tool, we've increased our score (out of 100) from 60 to 73 - an increase of nearly 22%.

This has been achieved through better implementation of browser caching as well as changing the way we handle our 'friendly URLs', which means we've gone from URLs like /forumdisplay.php?176-Rugby-League-World-Cup-2013 to now using /forums/176-Rugby-League-World-Cup-2013. This latter change should also help improve our ranking for sub-forums within Google.

Further improvements, including optimisation of images, are planned for the next few days and I will report back with any Google score changes.

In the meantime, please use this thread to report any bugs - just try and be as detailed as possible as to when, where, how, etc. - and ideally provide screenshots if possible.

Thanks and hopefully you'll notice a positive result from these changes.

 

[TRF_Fullback]

Following improvements to the images and a couple of other tweaks, we're now getting a Google score of 77 now which represents, in theory, a 28.3% increase in the site's speed compared to prior to today.