Fix Something, Break Something Else.

I've spent the last couple of days trying to fix the speeds of my two sites. The desktop sites were good (in the 80s or even 90s), but my mobile speeds were just terrible. I even reached as low as 19! Something had to be done immediately.

Looking for a Solution

I watched tons of YouTube tutorials and read lots of articles looking for a solution. As expected, the first solution was optimizing images, which is something I've always done. I also got rid of a couple of plugins, but nothing improved. I also tried a myriad of caching plugins (W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Optimize, and the like), and my results were mixed. At some point, I got my speed up to the 70s, but in an effort to further improve it, I continued tweaking my site, and my speed plummeted. I was back to square one.

My head hurt so much, and I felt like giving up. So, I decided to take a break and continue the following day.

Improved Speeds at Last

I felt so frustrated and even considered hiring someone to fix it, but I decided to continue looking. That's how I came across a video where they recommended a plugin called WP Touch, and it helped. My speed went up to the upper 40s/lower 50s.

I was not totally satisfied, but I was afraid of messing up again. Finally, I decided to give it one more try. I found another plugin called Amp, and it dramatically increased my speed. One of my sites reached the 90s for the first time, and the second one was in the upper 70s/lower 80s.

The only thing I didn't like was that I had to change my theme (for the mobile version that is) since my theme was not compatible, but other than that, I couldn't complain.

Too Good to Be True

They say you can't have your cake and eat it too. I guess it applies to my situation. I was happy because my mobile speeds were very good for the first time. However, my happiness faded when I found out this last plugin had messed my site.

For starters, I noticed my top menu was unclickable. Well, that happened on the mobile version, not the desktop one. But still, why would you want a non-clickable menu?

Second, my GDPR notice and social share buttons disappeared.

Third, my affiliate widgets disappeared too.

Fourth, Google Ads stopped working, although I wasn't too worried about this.

The final result? I had a fast mobile site, but now it wasn't working properly. Ugh.

When You're Not Tech-savvy

I had to watch more videos and read more articles to find a solution. CSS? Java? CDN? What is all that? I had fixed a problem but created a new one.

I was sure this had to do with these two plugins. I had installed a third one (WP Fastest Cache), but through trial and error, I found out the other two were the ones causing trouble.

I uninstalled Amp, but then I ran into one more problem. When someone visited my site, he was redirected to another url even though the app had been uninstalled. I found plugins like this do that. When you type https://yourdomain.com instead of taking you there, the search engines take you to https://yourdomain.com/amp?

I freaked out, but fortunately, I was able to fix it and uninstall the app. What a relief!

Conclusion

I'd become so obsessed with speed, that I was starting to lose my sanity. I was this close to banging my head against the wall. No kidding.

For two days straight I tried lots of suggestions with mixed results. When I finally succeeded, I discovered I had broken something else.

I'm not a tech-savvy person, so I had a hard time getting everything fixed. My current mobile speeds are in the upper 40s/lower 50s. I'm not satisfied, but I don't want to make any changes. Never again.

Out of curiosity, I checked other sites in my same niche, and they all have terrible speeds! My speeds are way better than theirs! How do they rank so high if speed is supposedly a critical factor? I don't understand.

I guess we can't have everything in life, can we? Sometimes we have to choose the lesser of two evils. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.