Website Performance Feedback

[Steve Herschbach]

OK, I have been involved in a two month makeover and upgrade process for this website. The main goal is to get rid of all the old portions of the website so everything is a common format, look and feel throughout the site. This will insure all pages render properly on any device from a small phone to a large screen PC.

This put additional load on the existing hardware resources, and the website has bogged down considerably in the last month. I could count the seconds waiting for a page to load, and error messages were too common.

This morning the site was upgraded to a new server with both upgraded software and hardware. For my part I am seeing massively better performance now, pages loading almost instantly and everything just much snappier.

How does it seem to you? Better? No difference? Worse? Let me know if you see any glitches starting this morning - anything before today does not matter any more.

The process is not quite done. I have about 50 more old pages to convert, and my goal is to have this done before the end of next week. There are more performance tweaks I can undertake but with if the site stays as fast as it is now the benefits will probably not be as noticeable if at all. The most visible upgrade I will do soon will be to convert everything to SSL secure communications to bring the site up to current recommended standards. That may cause a little turmoil with images served from outside sources but I expect any disruption there to be minimal

Been a fair bit of work and I always stress a little before server moves, etc. However, the benefits should be considerable moving forward both for me as admin and for all you as members.

Thanks again for your patience during this process! 

[vanursepaul]

Thx Steve!

[tboykin]

It seems acceptable to me. I did run a quick test using GT Metrix and it looks like you could do the following:

1. Minify JS/CSS to improve load times

2. Thumbnail images instead of scaling them with code

These could be handled by your programmer or any number of free tools available online (https://www.minifier.org/, https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-dynamically-create-thumbnails--net-1818)

[Calmark]

While I don't have a particularly fast internet connection, I do notice the site loads faster for me than prior to the hardware upgrade.  You could call it "semi-snappy", so a very nice improvement.  

Thank you for your efforts at making this site top-notch!

[Mac]

It's quite an undertaking to engineer these changes. The former site is extensive. I have never bothered to join in the past due to 100+ days in the field every summer doing fishing and mountaineering as well as prospecting and mining. But I have spent countless hours on the site as well as on the Steve's Journal site (which may be part of the old site I don't know), soaking up every ounce of knowledge that I desire and to shorten my learning curve on detector use, which I have only recently become passionate about/ obsessed with mastering the art/ science of. So, point to this dissertation is to say I have a lot of experience on that other site. And so, per my take, this new site is a significant improvement in terms of its organization of content and is a clutter-free site and has more "white space" -- which makes it a lot easier on the mind, far less stressful and more enjoyable. Content hasn't changed; your website content and members' content is far superior than on other sites and so there is nothing to improve there -- is/ has been absolutely world-class across the board. Best of the net. No other site in this field compares. So for me, Steve, as a new member, yet one whose visited the other site and many other sites and forums on prospecting more hours than I can count on dozens of hands, well, your efforts are noticeable -- cleaner site as stated; pages and their content load immediately (but have a new and fairly sophisticated laptop), no glitches at all thus far, ads on the page more professional presented/ classier and not as obstructive as before. Hell, I clicked on 3 of the ads. Their presence doesn't take anything away from the site. I also really really like how you have structured and organized the pages that contain the articles. Plus, you've updated the article content or at least updated the date to 2018. I was reviewing the Chugach National Forest data for the prospecting sites in Hope-Sunrise District, in prep for next weekend when my wife and I make the drive from Wasilla. It's the same information that's in the booklet produced by the source (Chugach National Forest) but on your site it's an easier read, and so improvements in article access and how they're presented on the page is very appealing for me as a junkie for knowledge. 

You've done well and it's not taken for granted. Cheers! Mac 

[SDMiner]

Oh mama this website is rippin' fast! Where's your tip jar Steve?

[phoenix]

Steve I have a reasonably quick internet connection but not lightining fast.   Because you asked, I`ve noticed no difference.  I`ve always thought the site ran fine.       Dave

[flakmagnet]

It's working great. Nice work, the effort is appreciated.

[Swegin]

I agree with Phoenix.  I don't notice a difference but it's always been running fine for me in the past.  I do know that this is one of the best if not the best detecting forums that I know of.