[ANSWERED] Web page optimization

Is there anything that can be done (or will be done) to make gains in page load times? I’m thinking particularly of:

  • Replacing query strings with pseudo-directory encodings, possibly relying on Apache mod_rewrite

  • If possible, making the links required by Piwik point to a cookieless domain.

Are you talking about Piwik’s dashboard or your own websites in general. For the latter, have you tried CloudFlare?

Websites that are being tracked using Piwik. Sorry, I’m not clear how CloudFlare would answer the question. Isn’t there a Piwik answer?

It’d be relatively easy to do something with the short URI, but the long, JavaScript generated URI presents bigger problems. Unless the issue were tackled within Piwik.

If you’re talking about the tracking request via GET to piwik.php, then you’ll see an option in piwik 1.1 to use an asynchronous POST request.

If that’s not what you’re referring to, then you’ll have to elaborate.

[quote=vipsoft @ Nov 4 2010, 11:21 PM]If you’re talking about the tracking request via GET to piwik.php, then you’ll see an option in piwik 1.1 to use an asynchronous POST request.

If that’s not what you’re referring to, then you’ll have to elaborate.[/quote]

The visible HTML source for a site running at example.com and with a Piwik installation at example.org shows something like:

piwik

and a more complex URI appears to be generated by java script:

** rejected by your forum software **/piwik.php?idsite=3&rec=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fen&re

Widely quoted principles for maximizing page load speeds include the removal of query strings and the serving of static objects from cookieless domains. Can either or both of these objectives be achieved for the Piwik entities that are included as part of the tracking code?

[It’s a pity your forum isn’t smart enough to accept links to the well known example.com and example.org domains]

In Piwik 1.0, you can already use server-side tracking, so there’s no tracking code on the browser.

In Piwik 1.1, you’ll be able to POST. The URI is simply http ://yoursite/piwik.php

However, contrary to what you’ve read, shorter URLs for the tracking request don’t speed up the page load. Asynchronous script loading and requests to the server do have perceivable improvements to page load time (at the expense of backward compatibility with older browsers).

In the case of web analytics, a cookieless domain (ie a website that doesn’t serve up cookies) defeats accurate visitor tracking. Also, the transparent pixel image that is served up isn’t entirely static…the HTTP headers change.