Speed & size

Visitors leave slow pages. And a page that is suddenly much slower usually has a reason, like a cache that stopped working or a plugin that does too much.

What WP Moo looks at

Every page check times the page the way a first-time visitor's browser would, over a fresh connection. The Speed chart on a page splits that time into five parts:

DNS: looking up which server the address points to. When several pages of a site are checked together, the lookup happens once and counts for the first page only, so the others show almost no DNS time.
Connect: setting up the connection to that server.
TLS: the secure handshake behind the padlock.
Server wait: the server building the page until it starts answering. This is where WordPress, plugins and the cache make the difference.
Download: receiving the rest of the page.

We measure the page itself (its HTML), not the images, scripts and styles it loads. Redirects on the way count towards the time. Page size is the size of that HTML once unpacked.

The Speed (24h) column is the time to first byte: everything up to the moment the server starts answering, so DNS, connect, TLS and server wait together. In your sites list the number is the middle value of the last 24 hours. On the site overview it's the latest check, next to a line of the last 24 hours.

One slow check isn't a problem. For server wait and total time, we take the middle value of the passing checks over a stretch of minutes, and only that counts against the limit. A new page is judged once it has checks across that stretch. A page whose interval is as long as that stretch or longer has too few checks to compare, so a single check can count. The server wait limit is judged on the time to first byte, so a slow DNS or TLS handshake counts towards it too. That limit and the stretch of minutes depend on the site priority: the more important the site, the stricter the limit and the sooner it counts. The table below shows the limits for a site of Normal priority.

A page over any of these limits shows Slower and still counts as online. Page size and redirects are judged on every single check, except that size isn't judged when the page answers with an error.

Is the site behind Cloudflare? Then connect and TLS go to Cloudflare, and server wait includes Cloudflare fetching the page from your server.

What the problems mean

The page got slower Server wait above 800 ms (middle value over 15 minutes) Important This is usually a page cache that stopped working or a heavy plugin. Check the cache first, then the plugins added or updated lately.

The page got too big Page bigger than 2000 KB Important Look for images pasted into the page as code, a long list, or a page builder or plugin that adds a lot to the page.

The page is half empty Page smaller than 20 KB (half-empty page) Important Open the page and check that it shows everything; a plugin or part of the theme may have failed.

The page loads slowly Total time above 3000 ms (middle value over 15 minutes) Important The server is slow to send the whole page. Check the page cache first, then whether the server is short on memory or CPU.

The page redirects too often More than 2 redirects before the page Important Link straight to the final address, and check the redirect rules on the server or in your redirect plugin.

What each priority means: Problem priority.

How to fix it

The page got slower or loads slowly

Check your caching plugin first (like WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache): is it still on? Then look at what changed when it started, like a new plugin or an update. Still slow? Ask your host whether the server is overloaded, or send this page to your developer.

The page got too big or is half empty

A page that grew is often a page builder, a long product list or images pasted into the page as code. A page that shrank is usually missing part of its content: open it and check that everything shows.

Too many redirects

Link straight to the final address, and check your redirect plugin or the redirect rules on the server. More than 5 redirects, or a loop, is worse: we never reach the page, so it counts as not answering.

Don't need these limits for a page? Switch Speed & size off under Rules on that page.

For your developer

Each page check is one GET with Accept-Encoding: gzip, HTTP/2 over https when the server offers it (HTTP/1.1 over http), a new connection every time and no cookies. Redirects are followed and their time adds up. The DNS lookup is our own, through 1.1.1.1 and 9.9.9.9, so curl's DNS time can differ. To see the same numbers:

curl -so /dev/null -L --compressed -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' -A 'WPMooBot/1.0 (+https://wp-moo.com/bot)' -w 'dns %{time_namelookup}  connect %{time_connect}  tls %{time_appconnect}  first byte %{time_starttransfer}  total %{time_total}  redirects %{num_redirects}\n' https://example.com/
curl -sL --compressed -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' -A 'WPMooBot/1.0 (+https://wp-moo.com/bot)' https://example.com/ | wc -c

curl's times are in seconds and add up from the start. A redirect on the same host can come out a little faster in curl, because curl reuses the connection and we don't. The server wait limit and the Speed (24h) figure are first byte; the Server wait part of the chart is first byte minus tls (minus connect over plain http), and download is total minus first byte. Page size is the decoded body, as the second command counts it. We stop reading after 4,096 KB, so a bigger page shows about that size, and its total time stops there too.

Something unclear on this page? Email [email protected]