Optimizing Magento For Speed

Optimizing Magento

Magento is a very popular eCommerce application. It offers a great deal of customization and abilities from the initial installation. Here are a few suggestions for optimizing a Magento installation.

Changing The .htaccess File

Enabling Output Compression

In your .htaccess file for Magento, you will find a section of text starting with the line, <IfModule mod_deflate.c> and ending at </IfModule>

This code section can be used to turn on Apache’s mod_deflate module, which provides text, CSS, and javascript compression. You will want to uncomment (remove the # symbol) multiple lines so that it looks like this:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>

############################################
## enable apache served files compression
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#gzip

    # Insert filter on all content
    SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
    # Insert filter on selected content types only
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript

    # Netscape 4.x has some problems...
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html

    # Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip

    # MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine
    BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

    # Don't compress images
    SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary

    # Make sure proxies don't deliver the wrong content
    Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary

</IfModule>

Enabling Expires Headers

First-time visitors to any web page have to make several HTTP requests. By using the “Expires” header you make the components of the requests cacheable. This avoids unnecessary HTTP requests on subsequent page views.

You want to find the area of the .htaccess file that starts with <IfModulemod_expires.c> and ends with the first </IfModule> you see after it, and make it look like this:

<IfModule mod_expires.c>

############################################
## Add default Expires header
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#expires
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"

</IfModule>

Admin Settings

Merge JS and CSS Files

This particular tweak will reduce the number of HTTP requests on your eCommerce site.
Note: This can sometimes break some applications. After performing the following steps, please ensure that the site still performs as it did before enabling this feature.

1. Log into your administration area and go to System > Configuration > Developer
2. Under “JavaScript Settings“, change “Merge JavaScript Files” to yes.
3. Under “CSS Settings“, change “Merge CSS Files” to yes.
4. Finally, you will want to clear your Magento cache.

Enable Flat Catalogs

The model Magento uses to store customer and product data results in longer than average SQL queries and more reads. Enabling the Flat Catalog option for Categories and Products will merge product data into one table, improving performance.

1. Log into your administration area and go to System > Configuration > Catalog
2. Under “Frontend“, change “Use Flat Catalog Category” to yes.
3. Under “Frontend“, change “Use Flat Catalog Product” to yes – this is optional.
4. Next, you will want to clear your Magento cache.
5. Finally, you will need to reindex the tables.

Enable Compilation

Note: This can sometimes break some applications. After performing the following steps, please ensure that the site still performs as it did before enabling this feature.

1. Log into your administration area and go to System > Tools > Compilation
2. Next, simply click the Run Compilation Process Button
3. After the compilation has run, it should enable itself automatically

Enable System Cache

1. Log into your administration area and go to System > Cache Management
2. Next, click on the Select All link
3. Finally, make sure the Actions is set to Enable and click submit

Disable Error Logging

1. Log into your administration area and go to System > Configuration > Developer
2. Under the Log Settings section, be sure that Enabled is set to No

Database Maintenance Tips

Magento uses several tables for logging. While logging is very important in regarding knowing what has and is going on with your store, the logs can become large very quickly, so regular maintenance can be of great assistance.

Here are the tables for logging:

log_customer
log_visitor
log_visitor_info
log_url
log_url_info
log_quote
report_viewed_product_index
report_compared_product_index
report_event
catalog_compare_item