Server response time: restructure the site or create the new one? SEO opinions needed.
-
Hi everyone,
The internal structure of our existing site increase server response time (6 sec) which is way below Google 0.2sec standards and also make prospects leave the site before it's loaded.
Now we have two options (same price):
- restructure the site's modules, panels etc
- create new site (recommended by developers)
Both options will extend the same design and functionality.
I just wanted to know which option SEO community will recommend?
-
Yes, correct - multiple CCS files & javascript will not affect server response time - I think ryan was referring to page load speed.
-
Hello.
Before starting from scratch, try to optimize Drupal. You have some simple things to do which speed Drupal amazingly:
- Go to Administer » Site configuration » Performance page, enable the option ""Aggregate and compress CSS files." and "Aggregate Javascript Files".
- On the same page, activate the cache: "Cache page for anonymous users" and "Cache blocks".
Try if it helps while you find the source of the problem.
-
There is one huge thing that is being missed here by both of you. The Google Insight grades on server response time. Server response time has no bearing on if a site loads 1 css file or 30 css files. It has not bearing on how many js files are loaded and if the parsing of them is deferred or not. If you follow all of the suggestions that pingdom gives you to the T, it will not affect your server response time one bit.
The only way to affect your server response time is going to be to reduce the processing time of your site. Not the loading time in the browser. To reduce your server response time you are going to have to explore server caching, mysql optimization, and things such as that.
This might help to read as well.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2383341?hl=en
http://www.blogaid.net/server-response-time-vs-page-load-time-for-google-crawl
-
We'll make it as fast as possible! Thanks John. Just need to figure out if we should restructure the existing site, or make it from scratch.
-
Ryan
Yes. I do not worry about the speed variations - there are too many variables on each test. ie Which server did the test use?
My view on page speed is forget "time" and "time ranges" on various tools. If you have identified page speed as issue which you have focus on what you know you can and should fix. Don't just fix the minimum - on page speed fix the maximum. I believe page speed is a key factor on ranking.
-
John, thanks for the tool. Site has multiple CSS for the same types of content, too much of different modules, panels and blocks for the simple site. Btw, in Google page speed test it shows different time speed in the range between 2.1 sec and 6,5 sec. Have you ever seen this dependency?
-
Lesley is correct it is important to understand why the issues before you move forward.
I am not sure if you are familiar with tools.pingdom.com - but free test your site on tools.pingdom. Then review the performance tab - and see what your loading problems are. Also .2 of a second is best in class - if you can get below 2 seconds I would be happy with that. Not suggesting you do not go for .2 - just that it is onerous and likely not time efficient.
The positive is I have seen several times dropping a site from 6 seconds to 2 seconds gets me an uplift in rankings without doing anything else!
-
I am not familiar with Drupal, when you say you are restructuring is that something internal in Drupal? Or does that mean you are changing the page structure of your site, like for instance moving pages around? Or are you removing some widgets and things like that from pages?
-
It's Drupal 7. We don't redesign, we're restructuring. Yes, server takes too much time to generate the pages, they're dynamic.
-
Server response time is tied to two factors. The first one is the DNS look up, the second one is the time it takes your server to generate a page and spit it out. Generally both of those can be improved without having to redesign your site. What is your site currently developed in? Is it constantly changing?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO for Franchises - Subdomains or Folders?
Wondering if there ever has been any recent consensus on best SEO strategy for a Franchise. I feel it is safe to assume that just having one corporate website with a "store locator" that just brings up the address, phone and hours of a location is not optimal. Yes, the important thing is to get a Google Places for Business listing for each location so you can come up in the 3-pack and regular Maps result, BUT, the rankings for the 3-pack is largely determined by the site's authority and relevance to the specific search term used, IN ADDITION TO, the proximity of the business to the search user's physical location. Apparently it is widely believed that domain authority does not transfer from www.mycorporatedomain.com to somecity.mycorporatedomain.com. And of course we also know there is a potential for a duplicate content penalty, so you can't just duplicate your main site for a number of locations and change the address and phone number on the contact page. If the products and or services are identical for each location, then it's going to be somewhat ridiculous to try and rewrite many sections of the website since the information is no different despite the location. It seems in general more people are advocates of putting location pages or micro-sites in a subfolder of the corporate domain so that it can benefit from the domain's authority. HOWEVER, it is also widely known that the home page (root URL) of any domain carries more weight in the eyes of Google. So let's assume the best strategy is to create a micro-site where phone and address is different anywhere they appear and the contact page is customized to that location, and the "Meet The Staff" page is customized to that location. The site uses the same style 'template' if you will as the main site. Let's also assume you can build a custom home page that has some different content, but still shares the same look and some of the same information as the main site. But let's say between the different phone, address, and maybe some different images and 20% of the content rewritten a bit, Google doesn't view it as dupe content. So would the best strategy then be to have the location home page be: somecity.mycorporatedomain.com and the product and services pages that are identical to the main site you just use a rel canonical to point to the main site? Or, do you make the "home page" for the local business be a subfolder of the main site. So I guess what it boils down to is whether or not the domain authority has more of an effect compared to having a unique home page on a subdomain. What about this? Say the only thing different on the local site is the contact (phone/address) in the header and/or footer of every page, the contact form page, and the meet the staff page. All other content is identical to the corp site, including the home page. I think in that case you need to use a script to serve the pages dynamically. So you would need to server the pages using a PHP script that detects the subfolder name to determine the location and dynamically replaces the phone and address and server different contact and staff pages. You could have a vanity domain mycity.mycorporatedomain.com that does a 301 redirect to the subfolder home page. (This is all ofcourse assuming the subfolder method is the way to go.)
Local Website Optimization | | SeoJaz0 -
Best SEO Option for Multi-site Set-up
Hi Guys, We have a Business to Business Software Website. We are Global business but mainly operate in Ireland, UK and USA. I would like your input on best practice for domain set-up for best SEO results in local markets. Currently we have: example.com (no market specified) and now we are creating: example.com/ie (Ireland) example.com/uk (united kingdom) example.com/us (united states) My question is mainly based on the example.com/us website - should we create example.com/us for the US market OR just use example.com for the US the market? If the decision is example.com/us should we build links to the directory or the main .com website. To summarize there is two questions: 1. Advise on domain set-up 2. Which site to build links to if example.com/us is the decision. Thank you in advance, Glen.
Local Website Optimization | | DigitalCRO0 -
Schema training/resources for local SEO?
I am currently in the process of apply schema for dozens of clients (many are large retailers). Although I am not a developer, I do know the basics of schematic markup & structured data. I do work with a development team and I'm trying to provide them with schema application best practices. Obviously there are many good articles/blog posts out there about schema. However I'm looking for a more substantial training course, webinar or resource website about schema application. Does anybody have any good recommendations?
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB0 -
Local SEO: City & County Pages
I'm working on developing some local pages for an HVAC company. They cover two counties, so I was planning on having two county pages, then linking them to individual city pages to keep the menu simpler and not cluttering it up with a couple dozen city pages for people to slog through. Has anybody ever done county pages before for local SEO? Or at least seen them? Just curious to see if there's any real benefit overall for have separate county pages, or if I should just stick to city pages.
Local Website Optimization | | ChaseMG0 -
SEO companies
Hello, I hear there are a lot of small SEO companies in Boston (that have about 2-3 people) - does anyone know of any they can suggest? They don't necessarily have to be in Boston - please suggest small SEO consultancies if you know of any. Thanks! -Polyvore
Local Website Optimization | | seomoz_polyvore.com0 -
Yoast Local SEO Reviews/Would it work for me?
Hi everyone, I'm looking for some feedback on Yoast Local SEO, and if you think it'd work for our site. www.kempruge.com. Our site is a wordpress site, and there's nothing about it, off the top of my head, that makes me think it wouldn't work, but I've been wrong before. We do use All-In-One SEO, not the Yoast plugin, so I'm not sure if that's compatible.or would cause a problem? (The reason we use All-In-One and not Yoast is because that's what we had when I got here, and I'm worried what would happen if we switched). Also, we have three offices, and I need to be able to do local seo for all three. I know Yoast says it supports multiple offices, but I'd feel more comfortable if someone on here let me know from his/her experience that it did. Anything else you want to add about Yoast Local, I'm all ears! Thanks, Ruben
Local Website Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Single Site For Multiple Locations Or Multiple Sites?
Hi, Sorry if this rambles on. There's a few details that kind of convolute this issue so I'll try and be as clear as possible. The site in question has been online for roughly 5 years. It's established with many local citations, does well in local SERPs (working on organic results currently), and represents a business with 2 locations in the same county. The domain is structured as location1brandname.com. The site was recently upgraded from a 6-10 page static HTML site with loads of duplicate content and poor structure to a nice, clean WordPress layout. Again, Google is cool with it, everything was 301'd properly, and our rankings haven't dropped (some have improved). Here's the tricky part: To properly optimize this site for our second location, I am basically building a second website within the original, but customized for our second location. It will be location1brandname.com/secondcity and the menu will be unique to second-city service pages, unique NAP on footer, etc. I will then update our local citations with this new URL and hopefully we'll start appearing higher in local SERPs for the second-city keywords that our main URL isn't currently optimized for. The issue I have is that our root domain has our first city location in the domain and that this might have some negative effect on ranking for the second URL. Conversely, starting on a brand new domain (secondcitybrandname.com) requires building an entire new site and being brand new. My hunch is that we'll be fine making root.com/secondcity that locations homepage and starting a new domain, while cleaner and compeltely separate from our other location, is too much work for not enough benefit. It seems like if they're the same company/brand, they should be on the same sitee. and we can use the root juice to help. Thoughts?
Local Website Optimization | | kirmeliux0