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.
Recent Comments
22
I have no idea either, Enrique, but I would love to hear answers to your post because eventually, this is going to be very important to me!
Jeff
I hope someone is able to shed some light on the matter. This is frustrating to say the least. I'll try to concentrate on something else.
Thanks, Jeff!
You might want to PM ChrystopherJ, and see what he has to say! He is a real tech guru, and seems to have a lot of good answers to troublesome problems, Enrique!
Jeff
I too struggle with low mobile speeds. Like yourself, I tried a few options with no real solution. I have no idea what to do. I really don't wish to spend all day trying to correct several problems created by one.
If I find a real fix I will let you know.
Thanks for the article. In a way, I'm glad I am not the only one with this problem. However, I wish neither of us had a problem If you know what I mean.
Hi, Chuck,
There's many of us. Getting a perfect score seems like an insurmountable task.
I spent hours trying to find a solution. So much has been said on the subject, but not everything works for us.
Let me know if you ever figure something out.
Enrique
Ya you have to be very careful. Perhaps their is a way to speed up your site without adding plugins. I do hope eventually your speed gets better ya.
Francesca
Hi, Francesca,
I hope there is, but honestly, I've come to the conclusion we can't do much if we're not too technical.
Hey Enrique, I understand your pain. At one time (or maybe two :)) I was also a bit obsessed with site speed. In addition, you read posts saying that speed under 3 s is bad. Well....I've seen lots of sites that rank well with not a good speed.
What I did to increase the speed on my beauty site is that I got rid of the social plugin. When I share something on social media, I just copy the link of the post. I found out that the social media plugin was slowing my site down.
But I decided not to care about my site's speed anymore. I do not have many plugins and that's all. Keywords, content, backlinks from sharing content all over matter more than speed. If you don't have good keywords, you can have the best speed in the world and google still won't rank you.
So that's my take on it.
Hope you're not dealing with this issue anymore, my friend!
Lenka
Hi, Lenka,
Yes, I don't understand. I've also seen popular sites with average or terrible speeds. How do they rank so well, though?
I just got rid of a couple of plugins. I wish I had less, but it's hard if you're not too technical. Unless you want to mess with CSS, HTML, Java, CDNs, and whatnot, plugins are the solution for the average blogger.
Regarding social plugins, I think it's just a matter of searching for a lightweight one. How will people share our posts? We can just copy the link ourselves and share it, but I doubt others will go through that hassle.
I guess I will try getting backlinks. I have one already from another site.
The struggle is real.
Thanks!
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I only have 1 post out of 70 that has low mobile speed and that’s because it contains a video the rest are all green. Thank you very much for sharing.
That's great news, Lisa! Is the video in your Wordpress library? They recommend we embed videos from YouTube or some other video platform instead of uploading them.
No I embedded it from YouTube