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Google Page Speed Insights Optimization and DNN - Let's Figure This Out

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New Around Here





    Ok ... this seems to be a thorn in most DNN website owners flesh. At least the ones that care about page speed. How can we optimize our sites to get the green light of approval from DNN?

    I discovered something recently that I thought was the key. If you go into site settings and click on more, then turn off the following settings: 

    • enable popups
    • inline editor enabled
    • inject module anchor

    It will shrink your JS file and possibly boost you into the green for Google PSI. We got a passing LCP score on our site after doing this. The problem is that doing this removes JQuery from your website altogether so other things will break. I've tried manually adding JQuery in the CDF but the site still will throw JS errors. It's as if manually adding it doesn't add it early enough in the DOM to work whereas having DNN load it does. Does that make sense?

    Well I would really like to leave the above settings to 'off' but I cannot without breaking the site. Has anyone else experienced this? After making several speed enhancements to the site, the ranking jumped 20 notches up for the keyword that we've been trying to target. So this is a big deal. 

    Please advise. Let's get this thing figured out once and for all. 






    Veteran Member





      Posted By Afacts on 16 Sep 2021 09:15 PM

      Ok ... this seems to be a thorn in most DNN website owners flesh. At least the ones that care about page speed. How can we optimize our sites to get the green light of approval from DNN?

      I discovered something recently that I thought was the key. If you go into site settings and click on more, then turn off the following settings: 

      • enable popups
      • inline editor enabled
      • inject module anchor

      It will shrink your JS file and possibly boost you into the green for Google PSI. We got a passing LCP score on our site after doing this. The problem is that doing this removes JQuery from your website altogether so other things will break. I've tried manually adding JQuery in the CDF but the site still will throw JS errors. It's as if manually adding it doesn't add it early enough in the DOM to work whereas having DNN load it does. Does that make sense?

      Well I would really like to leave the above settings to 'off' but I cannot without breaking the site. Has anyone else experienced this? After making several speed enhancements to the site, the ranking jumped 20 notches up for the keyword that we've been trying to target. So this is a big deal. 

      Please advise. Let's get this thing figured out once and for all. 

      Actually, there is no real Once and for All option as your score mostly depends on the Theme you are using and the content on the page.

      - enable popups: switched off could prevents jQuery from being loaded for site visitors
      - inline editor enabled: should IMO have no influence as that's only used for page editors
      - inject module anchor: Makes a minor change to the HTML rendered by modules, I son;t see how that would help.

      The fact that enable popups removes jQuery and after that you see js errors probably means that the Theme you are using depends on jQuery, but does not request for it to be loaded.

      < %@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="jQuery" src="~/Admin/Skins/jQuery.ascx" % >
      < dnn:jQuery runat="server">

      So you would need to fix the Theme, but that would bring jQuery back in the page.
      A Theme that does not use jQuery would help.
      BTW, did you try the Combine files option in Settings > Servers > Server Setting s> Performance?

       






      New Around Here





        Thanks Tim for your response. 

        We have been able to pinpoint some definite things that can be done to improve Google PSI on a DNN site. I'll list them below for the benefit of anyone who is interested.

        First a little background. We lost our ranking for a very important keyword after a website redesign and a Google Core Algo update.

        It turns out that the issue was performance. The content was largely untouched. After the redesign, the site scored very poorly in Google PSI. It dropped from page one for the keyword to page 8 or 9.

        We are now on our way back to page 1, presently sitting at the top of page 2. Here are basically the steps that we took to optimize things.

        The site is: https://www.sabbathtruth.com/

        • Slimmed down our CSS as much as possible, removing styles that were not needed or being used.
        • Same with custom JS
        • Added height and width attributes to our images eventhough they are responsive. This helps with the CLS score on Google PSI
        • Removed Google Fonts and instead downloaded them and used Font-Face in the CSS. This helps with the LCP score
        • Compressed and sometimes resized images
        • Made sure that minifying and combining CSS and JS files was enabled in the DNN Admin
        • In the skin made sure that any JS files have the 'Defer' attribute added
        • If you don't need the viewstate enabled in the skin, set that to false
        • Disabled the 'enable popups' option in the admin
        • Disabled 'inline editor enabled'
        • Disabled 'inject module anchor'

        After doing the last three, DNN will no longer load JQuery files unless you're logged in as an admin. This means that you'll need to include this in your skin. We've found this to be a much better way to do it as DNN will load more than just basic JQuery which adds to the bloat.

        After doing these things our site went into the green for Google PSI on mobile and as stated earlier, we're moving on up in the rankings for our keyword. We are bouncing right now between the bottom of page 1 and the top of page 2 for it. 

        I hope that someone finds this helpful. If anyone has any additional suggestions, please share!

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