Slow loading Homepage - loads twice (Pingdom)

[well-its-1-louder]

Thanks for looking.

Site is: www.vintageheirloom.com

My homepage seems slower than the rest of my pages, & erratic load times, 2 -6 secs. It looks like it loads twice when run through Pingdom tools (http://tools.pingdom.com)?

On the results page I can see the html script object at the top http://www.vintageheirloom.com/ and then reappears at the bottom again. Load time 1st is approx 761 ms then 1.35 seconds.

I've looked for images that might be loading the site, I saw this as a reason, but I can't see this being the problem.

I've seen mention of looking in my .htaccess file if that is the cause. I've removed chunks of code to see any changes but couldn't spot any, still loads html script for www.vintageheirloom.com twice.

Thanks Kevin

.htaccess file details:

<code>RewriteOptions inherit
# 1.To use URL Alias you need to be running apache with mod_rewrite enabled. 

# 2\. In your opencart directory rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess.

# For any support issues please visit: http://www.opencart.com

Options +FollowSymlinks

# Prevent Directoy listing 
Options -Indexes

# Prevent Direct Access to files
 <filesmatch "\.(tpl|ini|log|ds_store)"="">Order deny,allow
 Deny from all</filesmatch> 

# Prevent Direct Access to files
 <filesmatch "fbcindex"="">Order deny,allow
 Deny from all</filesmatch> 

# Use PHP 5.3
AddType application/x-httpd-php53 .php

# SEO URL Settings
RewriteEngine On
# If your opencart installation does not run on the main web folder make sure you folder it does run in ie. / becomes /shop/ 

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_sitemap [L]
RewriteRule ^googlebase.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_base [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !.*\.(ico|gif|jpg|jpeg|png|js|css)
RewriteRule ^([^?]*) index.php?_route_=$1 [L,QSA]

### Additional Settings that may need to be enabled for some servers 
### Uncomment the commands by removing the # sign in front of it.
### If you get an "Internal Server Error 500" after enabling any of the following settings, restore the # as this means your host doesn't allow that.

# 1\. If your cart only allows you to add one item at a time, it is possible register_globals is on. This may work to disable it:
# php_flag register_globals off

# 2\. If your cart has magic quotes enabled, This may work to disable it:
# php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off

# 3\. Set max upload file size. Most hosts will limit this and not allow it to be overridden but you can try
# php_value upload_max_filesize 999M

# 4\. set max post size. uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields
# php_value post_max_size 999M

# 5\. set max time script can take. uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields
# php_value max_execution_time 200

# 6\. set max time for input to be recieved. Uncomment this line if you have a lot of product options or are getting errors where forms are not saving all fields
# php_value max_input_time 200

## INCREASE PAGE SPEED HTACCESS MODIFICATION ##
 <ifmodule mod_headers.c="">Header set Connection keep-alive</ifmodule> 

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript application/x-javascript
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

 <ifmodule mod_headers.c="">Header append Vary User-Agent</ifmodule> 
## END INCREASE PAGE SPEED HTACCESS MODIFICATION ##

## DIVERT NON WWW TO WWW http://www.seomoz.org/q/is-there-an-easier-way-from-the-server-to-prevent-duplicate-page-content ##
 <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]</ifmodule> 
## END DIVERT NON WWW TO WWW http://www.seomoz.org/q/is-there-an-easier-way-from-the-server-to-prevent-duplicate-page-content ##

# BEGIN WordPress
 <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> 

# END WordPress

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^.*$
RewriteRule ^authentic\-preowned\-designer\-handbags$ "http\:\/\/www\.vintageheirloom\.com\/authentic\-second\-hand\-designer\-bags" [R=301,L]</code>

[FedeEinhorn]

Well, there's some improvements you can make and some other you can't.

First: try using CSS and JS static files, the way you are calling them is using php, which probably doesn't let the machine to save a copy on cahce. Once you manage to serve real static content, you can enhance that by using a CDN, like netdna, or maxcdn. You could also test cloudflare, which also has CDN integrated and other features that will also help with page speed while async loading all JS, preventing any blocking while the HTML is downloaded.

Second: you cannot edit/change anything from the twitter, facebook js.

Following all suggestions by page speed, you could achieve 95+/100.

Try checking the problem and the possible solutions. They even offer reading material to allow anyone to understand what is exactly the issue and possible fixes.

Hope that helps!

[well-its-1-louder]

Hey there Federico,

Thanks for your help and reassurance.

I've run Google Page Speed 84/100 which sounds pretty good.

High priority items, seem a bit over zealous to me & I have no idea how to fix ??

• http://api.twitter.com/.../vintageheirloom.json?... (0.28 seconds)
• http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/.../371850_540740888_1013846933_q.jpg (0.20 seconds)
• http://www.facebook.com/.../likebox.php?... (0.16 seconds)
• http://www.vintageheirloom.com/ (1 seconds)
• http://www.vintageheirloom.com/.../common.js.php?... (0.10 seconds)
• http://www.vintageheirloom.com/.../screen.css.php?... (0.11 seconds)
• https://r.twimg.com/jot?... (0.27 seconds)

Thanks tho

[BridalHotspot]

I agree with Federico, Google Page Speed helped me fix many issues on my site and made it quite a bit faster.

[FedeEinhorn]

Hey,

The 2 loads could be: 1st load (no cahce), 2nd load (cached), thus the second load is much faster as images and other cached content in not being requested from the server.

Why don't you try with Google Page Speed? It will pinpoint each fix you can apply to speed up loading time. If you are using Firefox, you can download Firebug and install Page Speed, I don't know about other browsers tho.

Hope that helps!