[QUESTION] Page Speed Reports on Staging Sites

  • I am currently on a client′s site working trying to improve its page loading speed and I′ve come to a weird situation (at least for me).

    I like working under a staging environment whenever working on page loading speed issues and, when running the staging site URL on tools like GPSI or GTMetrix, I am getting weird scores.

    In fact, when checking GTMetrix waterfall, on the original report I see 77 HTTP requests but, with the staging site, I see only 6 HTTP requests.

    Obviously, the results are skew and nearly perfect.

    Left to say, everything I′ve done is just optimizing 11x images by converting them into webp, uploading them into the media library, and changing them in the staging site.

    Why is this? Isn′t possible to run staging site′s through these speed tools? Thoughts?

    Thanks in advance!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    It depends on how the staging site is hosted. I’m assuming your staging site is one provided for the purpose by your host. It may be fine on one host and all messed up on another. Why is this? IDK, it is what it is. Maybe host provided staging is partially blocking requests from such tools. In any case, it’s likely on a totally different server than production.

    If you staging site is merely a sub-folder installation on your production server, then I’m really at a loss for an explanation. This would be one approach where I think there shouldn’t be an issue.

    Another option is to develop locally and use Chrome’s Lighthouse tool for analysis. Obviously the speed assessments will all be off, but assessments like image sizes, layout issues, etc. are still valid.

    Thread Starter RogerM

    (@imnewbie)

    It depends on how the staging site is hosted.

    The site is hosted on AWS

    I’m assuming your staging site is one provided for the purpose by your host.

    I am using WP Staging Pro for this. So, I am guessing, the staging site is still being hosted on AWS.

    If your staging site is merely a sub-folder installation on your production server, then I’m really at a loss for an explanation. This would be one approach where I think there shouldn’t be an issue.

    As a matter of fact, it is a subfolder.

    Like https://mymainsite.com/staging

    Another option is to develop locally and use Chrome’s Lighthouse tool for analysis. Obviously the speed assessments will all be off, but assessments like image sizes, layout issues, etc. are still valid.

    Yeah, this is something I would like to avoid.

    The reason why I am creating the staging site is to be able to work on its page speed issues without affecting the live site when testing.

    So, I need the staging to remain hosted where the site currently is.

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    Could it be a permissions issue? Is the staging site fully accessible to the public? It could be due to how AWS has their modSecurity module configured. It’s about the only explanation I can think of if the site is otherwise publicly accessible.

    Thread Starter RogerM

    (@imnewbie)

    I will look into it.

    Thanks for the insight!!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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