There is always quite a bit of technical stuff that goes on behind the scenes whenever you visit a website. Although you are able to see text and images loading on your screen, in the background, it is your browser that happens to request and receive files. Normally the WordPress sites are dynamic, and it surely takes various parts to render it in the browser. When one makes wordpress make fewer http requests, it helps for faster loading of websites.
The great thing about it is that you can speed up the site in a significant manner by reducing HTTP requests. HTTP requests are considered to have a big impact on the page loading speeds, thus directly affecting bounce rate, user experience, and SEO. When you happen to make fewer HTTP requests for WordPress to the server, you will notice the site loading faster.
If you want to boost web traffic regularly, you should know that website speed is the most essential of the components. PageSpeedy.io is a lightweight, modern, and powerful WordPress cache plugin. Having a set of optimization features, PageSpeedy is an amazing server-level cache that helps you to minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. You can also use PageSpeedy to optimize the website images and schedule any of the purges for the specified URLs.
What are HTTP Requests?
Whenever people happen to visit your site, you will see their browser pinging on your web server, and the files happen to be the requests containing the content of the page. These files include JavaScript, CSS, HTML, icons, images, and many others. This request is simply known as an HTTP request, whereas the word HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
While the server obtains an HTTP request from the browser of the user, your server manages to react by transferring the files that are needed. The page is then rendered by the user’s browser. Maintaining a record of the HTTP requests is essential because whenever someone hits your site, the browser is obliged to execute a separate HTTP request for individual files that are required to administer the page they see.
If your site is minimalist with not many files, then it will not take must time for requesting and downloading the files. It is worth noting for you that this may not be the case for the majority of the websites, especially the ones using various animations, images, and other types of dynamic content.
By decreasing the quantity of several components in your WordPress site’s pages, you can secure fewer HTTP requests that are demanded to administer a web page. As a result, your site’s loading times will speed up, which clearly shows how important the HTTP requests are for the performance of a website.
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Ways to make fewer HTTP requests
After getting information about the trouble, it gets important for you to find the solution. You will find many different ways to reduce HTTP requests for the WordPress site. Although some of these might be technical, it is still possible for you to make them work.
Make fewer HTTP requests using Minify JavaScript and CSS files
Many people talk about combining several files together into a single one, and it is possible to do this with the scripts as well as the style sheets. It is worth noting that all of these happen to represent a completely separate HTTP request, and therefore, it is better to have a few of those. As compared to several smaller files, a single large file can download much faster.
One can combine this with minification also because the idea is to strip away the formatting as well as the characters that are able to make the files easier for human beings to read. When you do the aforementioned, it will considerably lessen the size of the file and advance the download process.
There is another superb way of doing this by having a make fewer HTTP requests plugin known as Autoptimize. With this plugin, everything will be done automatically, and you will have quite a good experience using it. Many other plugins also have the same ability. However, you need to be aware that minification and concatenation with HTTP/2 are no longer necessary. So if this protocol is already being employed by the bulk of your web traffic, then this distinct procedure will not be possessing a huge influence.
Use a CDN or a Caching plugin to make fewer HTTP requests
Although you may not find caching to be able to reduce the HTTP requests on your site, it can surely be helpful to cut down the number of requests that your repeat customers make. As a lot of your website content is kept static by it, therefore, the people who visit your site on a regular basis don’t need to download and process each and everything right from the start.
WP Super Cache, WP Rocket, and W3 Total Cache are quite well-recognized plugins for caching. Out of these, W3 Total Cache is the best one; therefore, you can make fewer HTTP requests w3 total cache. Caching can also work great when combined with Content Delivery Network or CDN. This means that a computer network that is distributed across the world keeps a copy of your website at hand. This way, it is worthy of serving your guests from the most adjacent probable position and makes fewer HTTP requests WordPress plugin.
A CDN is also able to offload the HTTP requests to any server other than yours. When the workload happens to split this way, it can then enhance the page loading speed of your WordPress site to a great extent.
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Reduce HTTP requests WordPress by Image optimization
Nowadays, a website is considered nothing without images because a picture can speak a thousand words. But it is worth noting that each of the photos accounts for an HTTP request, and images are at the top of the elements that happen to take a longer time to load. Still, one cannot ignore the reality that the majority of WordPress sites completely rely on images. Consequently, it is crucial for you to optimize the photos for WordPress make fewer HTTP requests.
The primary move is getting freed of those images that you don’t apply. You might have to become a little ruthless in order to get rid of the bloat, but you still don’t need those. Then the images need to be compressed and optimized so that you can remove any unnecessary file data. Although you may find a number of plugins for image optimization, WP Compress is the best to reduce HTTP requests WordPress plugin.
Image optimization may not lessen your HTTP requests, but it definitely accommodates to decrease the size of your picture files, and this will interpret to more suitable page speeds. If you like to reduce the HTTP requests, then you have to take advantage of the CSS Image Sprites. In simple words, a sprite is an image collection where all of the images are put in a single file.
As your WordPress install will be making many trips towards the server for getting the images, but if all of these images are put in a single image file or sprite, then the WordPress install only has to make a single trip. This means that there will be fewer HTTP requests because of the fewer trips.
Enable Lazy Load and reduce HTTP requests WordPress
Lazy load is also a very important setting that is able to reduce HTTP requests. With lazy loading, those images are deferred from loading that is not required immediately on the page. In simple words, it helps the website load quickly because it happens to make sure that whatever is visible on the screen will be initially loaded.
Unless your users are able to arrive at your WordPress site and scroll up and down in a wild manner, your website will get considerably faster with the help of lazy loading. Therefore, you can minimize request size WordPress by enabling lazy load. If it is not included in your WordPress theme settings, then you have the option of downloading one of the numerous lazy loading plugins that are available.
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Limit the Custom fonts and use the system fonts
If you would like to have an improvement in your website’s user experience and design, then custom fonts can be a great option. However, you have to be careful regarding how you want to use them because HTTP request is added by each of the custom fonts that you use.
If you would like to use custom fonts, then it is important for you to go for a smaller number. This will help you to make fewer HTTP requests WordPress. So, if you want to have a different font for the post title and post body, then you have to think a lot before making a decision.
Likewise appears with the icon fonts like IcoMoon and Font Awesome. You will surely find the icon fonts to be quite useful, but never try to load the multiple icon font libraries. Hence, it is sufficient to go for a unique font library and then hold with it.
Other than that, if you would like to totally eliminate the HTTP requests that are related to the fonts of your site, then you can go for the option of using a system font stack. Although you may not have that much flexibility when it is about the design, your guests will not have to load any of the font files for rendering your site.
Reduce any of the third-party HTTP requests
Mostly the focus is to make fewer HTTP requests for the files on the WordPress server, but the visitor’s browser would also want to request the files from the third-party servers. There is a possibility that these requests can become troublesome because your site will completely depend on the speed of the third-party servers. Embedded YouTube videos, Google Analytics, Third-party ad services, and Google Fonts are examples of third-party servers.
You can make fewer HTTP requests plugin if it adds the own-party requests, or you can remove it and go for something that is more optimized. You can lazy load the YouTube videos and then replace the initial page load by using an image thumbnail. This will be helpful in delaying the addition of the HTTP requests until the visitor plays the video.
For the important third-party scripts like Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics, you have the option of experimenting with hosting the scrips locally. You will find infinite plugins possessing built-in add-ons to entertain these third-party scripts. There are various guides that can also be helpful in this particular matter.
Defer render-blocking JavaScript
One should not get confused with deferring the render-blocking JavaScript and think of it as eliminating HTTP requests. It optimizes how they load, and this can have the same effect on the perceived load times of your site. This can also be of great help with avoiding chaining of the critical requests in Google PageSpeed Insights.
When you defer the requests for some files or load them into an asynchronous manner, then you are able to prevent various unimportant resources required to load the visible portion of your website in a quick mode. There is a detailed guide on WordPress through which you can eliminate the render-blocking resources. This way, you will be able to reduce HTTP requests WordPress.
Limit the external resources
You have to keep in mind that the HTTP requests not only come from your website but they also come from external sources. This includes the external images that can be found quite commonly in the comment section, as Gravatar is used by WordPress by default. In the settings, you can switch them off or use them with the plugins.
Everyone is aware that social media has become a very important marketing tool, but it has become quite easy to overdo it. You may not be required to go on each of the networks, the same way you are not required to offer the sharing options for all of them. Therefore, you have to stay with what you are using, and you will surely make fewer HTTP requests WordPress.
Disable the WordPress Emojis
For the emojis, WordPress happens to add its own HTTP request. Although it’s just a single HTTP request, this file happens to become a thorn in the side of the WordPress performance fans. People happen to love WordPress performance, and that is why WordPress offers a guide on how to disable these emojis.
The most feasible approach for you is to install and then initiate the free Disable Emojis plugin. This will minimize request size WordPress, but for some of its other options, you need to read the full guide. After doing this, you will notice a drop in HTTP request count, while you will still be able to use the emojis.
Final Verdict
It can be a direct investment into the user experience to make fewer HTTP requests WordPress because these can be responsible for slowing down the website, thus making all the success markers slower. In the end, reducing HTTP requests stretches down to implementing robust minimalism and solely authorizing what you demand on your site. This never means to make it unappealing or boring, but the idea is to look at your web presence and what is important to it. Taking out any unnecessary items and assets will not only reduce HTTP requests WordPress and speed up the site but will also be improving your workflow.
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