Speed Testing WordPress Sites

Links are plentiful on the ‘Net and these are a few that will help when speed testing your WordPress sites.

Site Loading Speed, Caching and Validation

  • Pingdom Tools tests the load time of URL, analyzes it and helps to find bottlenecks. Click on down-arrows for each file/path under the waterfall tab to see the headers and again for each recommendation under the Performance Grade tab for specifics.
  • Yslow, a browser plugin analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance.
  • W3 Total Cache is a superior caching plugin for WordPress sites.
  • Firebug Web Development Tool check Net tab for page element loading times.
  • Check out your site’s speed with this handy speed test.
  • Page Speed test online or via browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. Results include minified HTML, CSS and JS files saved to configurable directory.
  • Caching Tutorial explains web and proxy caches and http headers.
  • REDbot checks the server clock and caching for a site, hover over each line of the response for full explanation.
  • WP Tutorial on Boosting Site Speed excellent step-by-step tutorial showing how to use plugins to improve speed of WordPress sites.
  • WebPageTest checks page loading speed, can select various browsers with screen shots reported. Advanced settings allow selection of connection speed for DSL, Cable, FIOS or 56K dialup.
  • W3C HTML Validator finds out if your pages don’t validate, which can make them slow to load.
  • W3C Link Checker
  • Test Mobile Readiness of web pages.