How to Optimize your Joomla Site

Joomla is a powerful CMS (Content Management System) that makes it easy to create and maintain a custom website. But, if it is not optimized well, it can cause high resource usage. In this guide we will show you the common steps to take when Optimizing a Joomla website.

• Enable Joomla Caching
• Be Careful of Intensive Extensions
• Block Robot Traffic
• Stop Unwanted Visitors
• Fight Comment Spam
• Keep Joomla Updated
• Request Further Assistance

Enable Joomla caching

• Understanding Global Module Caching in Joomla.
• Install the JotCache Extension in Joomla 3.

Be Careful of Intensive Extensions

Joomla Extensions can affect your site in many different ways, since anyone can make them. If you are having problems with a specific extension, you can try to find an alternative plugin with less problems. As a test, you can disable the problem plugin to see if it brings your resource usage down enough, or if it’s really necessary to your site’s function you could upgrade to a VPS. Here are some Extensions we’ve seen customers have issues with before as they seem to utilize a large amount of resource usage compared to other extensions. This list will be updated as needed.

• K2

Block Robot Traffic

By using a robots.txt file, you can block or deny robots from crawling your website.

• How to stop Search Engines from crawling your Website.

Stop Unwanted Visitors

You can block specific IP addresses, or User-Agents from getting to your site by using .htaccess rules.

• Block unwanted users from your site using .htaccess.

Fight Comment Spam

Ensure you are using some type of CAPTCHA in Joomla to fight against comment spam.

• How to enable ReCaptcha in Joomla 2.5
• How to change the Default Captcha in Joomla 3
• Learn more about Excessive amount of spam comments, or guestbook entries

Keep Joomla Updated

Updating Joomla regularly installs the latest security patches and fixes, and ensures you are running the most optimum version.

• How to upgrade joomla 1.5 to 2.5
• Keeping Joomla 2.5 up to date
• Should I upgrade Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.0?
• Should I upgrade to Joomla 3.1?
• Upgrade Joomla with Softaculous

Request Further Assistance

If your Joomla website does not run faster and use less resources, a deeper investigation probably needs to be done on your access logs to see what’s really being requested.

Enabling raw access logs for your account in cPanel can help gather evidence. This assists Tech Support when they are investigating the cause of high resource usage from your website.

Once you have at least a full day of logs, feel free to contact Live Tech Support via Ticket for further help.

• Submitting a Ticket Request

Congratulations, now you know the common steps to take when Optimizing a Joomla website.