things by Tomasz Dobrzyński

web developer / Łódź, Poland

How to speed up WordPress?

Did you know that plugins like slider, map or contact form load CSS and JS files on each page? Did you know they are busting your website performance and negatively affect page speed score? Use Gonzales to load them conditionally depending on page you're visiting. It's simple and lightweight tool which allows to get rid of useless CSS and JS files registered by themes and plugins.

This plugin allows you to get rid of CSS and JavaScript files that are simply useless. Less is better, right? One of the biggest problem of modern websites is page weight. It's not a big deal if you send content like text or images but have you ever wondered what percent of entire load represent styles and scripts? That's a real problem - to achieve compromise between performance and website quality you must optimize content efficiently. In other words you have to eliminate useless load (e.g. removing scripts and stylesheets added by Contact Form 7 from pages where is not used).

This WordPress plugin do not remove files from server - it's completly safe speeding up tool. Gonzales disable them using WordPress hooks.

Sample Gonzales optimization

Record below shows result of WordPress optimization. On the left side Gonzales optimized website, and on right non-optimized. Below you can find seconds after sending request to server. Record is slowed down. Remember it's only example and you can achieve much better results!

Here's more detailed example showing different scenarios:
(Use horizontal scroll when mouse over images)

Before

Requests: 28

Size: 311KB

After

Requests: 14

Size: 216KB

After+W3TC

Requests: 13

Total size: 154KB

How it's possible?

Gonzales is not another clone of WordPress performance plugin. So what’s the difference between this and other optimization tools? It truly gets rid of problem by excluding JS/CSS from HTML code while other speed up plugins mask problem only - they use compression/merging method to minimize website size. In fact such a website still loads useless files which affect website performance.

Gonzales uses brand new way of WordPress optimization method which other plugins do not use. I don't want you to uninstall other awesome tools like Cache Enabler, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache or WP Rocket - Gonzales works with them symbiotically and you don't need to configure anything! Nice way to speed up WordPress, huh?

I don't care, I have HTTP2 server

Well, you should. Even thought timings to all resources are the same you still forces people users to download the same large CSS/JS files. Once you use Gonzales website will be delivered faster to browser even with HTTP2. To verify if you use HTTP1.1 or HTTP2 use HTTP2 tester powered by KeyCDN team.

So... how to speed up WordPress?

Just play video below :) Warning. Following movie presents installation and configuration of Gonzales 1.x with different user interface. I'm preparing new video and it should be available soon. Meanwhile see how to speed up your WordPress website. Rewind to 11:21 to see before/after optimization effects. Results of Gonzales v1 and v2 are similar (v2 have slightly better because of new assets control mechanism).

It doesn’t take a genius to use Gonzales. Log in to your WordPress as administration and go to your home page. If plugin is correctly enabled in the top of WordPress menu you should see new item called “Gonzales”. That's the only interested place - there's no hidden back-end panels or complicated settings pages. Once you click you will see on screen list of all queued script and styles. Gonzales consist of 3 sections: theme, plugins, misc

To get rid of certain asset just click on checkbox "Everywhere" in "Disable" column. If you want to load conditionally e.g. to keep loading in current page or on certain content types page you can click on checkboxed from last column of row. Once you make changes on all assets press "Save changes" button located in the end of page. That's it, website will be reloaded and disabled files won't load.
Below you can find <30 sec presentation showing how simple is to disable any asset.

One of interesting options of plugin is silent mode. Once you complete optimizations you can switch Gonzales to work in background (disable menu and hidden panel). To do it define DISABLE_GONZALES_PANEL in function.php file of your theme. Thanks such a approach you will save preciouse top admin bar space and Kbytes in RAM.

There's long list of actions you must take to achieve great performance results but they need a lot of your attention. I suppose your time is precious and highly limited so here is what I recommend to read once you buy Gonzales: “How to move scripts to bottom with or without W3 Total Cache”. Hey, don't forget about PHP7 which is officially available since December 2015. Thanks new version of PHP7 you can get much better performance and depending on hosting you can enable it by adding one line to .htaccess or switching checkbox in administration section of hosting panel.

2.0.3 (2017-05-21)
▹ WordPress 4.8 support

2.0.2 (2017-02-25)
▹ improved appearance (CSS/JS improveents)
▹ removed unused quotation mark from page footer

2.0.1 (2017-01-03)
▹ added "Disable current URL" option
▹ keep Gonzales panel visible after configuration save
▹ improved configuration saving
▹ improved activation exceptions handling
▹ removed HTML panel code for non-signed in users
▹ added rule to ignore URL parameters (e.g. /contact?gc=39203 = /contact)

2.0.0 (2016-12-10)
▹ added content type filtering support
▹ improved usability
▹ improved disabling functionality

1.0.5 (2016-11-05)
▹ WordPress 4.7 support

1.0.4 (2016-03-10)
▹ improved HTTPS support
▹ added core cache clearing
▹ better support for older PHP releases 
▹ WordPress 4.5 support

1.0.3 (2015-10-24)
▹ added short instruction after plugin activation
▹ removing PHP4 references
▹ adding switcher in code to enable Gonzales in back-end
▹ improving permissions check on guest sessions

1.0.2 (2015-09-30)
▹ added WP Rocket support

1.0.1 (2015-09-01)
▹ improved menu appearance
▹ increased number of controlled JS/CSS

1.0.0 (2015-01-30)
▹ initial commit

Pricing and support

License? It's simple. If you own multiple websites or you are developer you can choose unlimited license ($199) and install it on all of websites you own/create. Feel free to select cheapest one ($25) if you are owner of one website only. 5 websites license ($59) is great for small agencies. Let me know if you need more dedicated plans.

Once you buy Gonzales you will be able to use it as long as you want (no time limitation). Only support and updates are time limited. You should know everything about plugin now. It's time to purchase your copy and speed up WordPress!