Well, not really , but it made a great headline, don’t you think?! But don’t be disappointed as in this post I want to share yet another great option for speeding up your blog - PHP Speedy for WordPress. After all - faster your blog loads, less chances that visitor leaves.

Let’s Turn WordPress Into Speed Demon using PHP Speedy plugin!

Before I begin it is important to define what problem are we trying to solve here. Not only will it establish a baseline for performance measure but also helps us understand if the improvement is worth the effort!

There are multiple options for speeding up your WordPress blog via optimization and caching and here are some posts I have personally wrote about it:

• WordPress Guide: Howto Force Your Blog Load Fast
• Using FeedBurner PRO Stats? Give Your Blog HUGE Speed Boost!
• Decluttering Trend Infects Blogosphere?
• Howto Design WordPress Blog To Survive The Digg
• 2 Things I Hate About WordPress And How To Turn Them Into Your Advantage

As you can see it is quite an extensive topic and that is only on my blog. Do a search and you will find HUGE number of articles that deal with same issue.

But very few address one big problem - CSS and Javascript bloat introduced by the theme as well as multitude of plugins we use.

And yet it amounts to quite a bloat if you go beyond the basic blog and add interactivity to it! There simply no way around it. Plugins and theme use CSS and javascript to introduce additional functionality and style it properly. And as you install more plugins - size continues to grow…

PHP Speedy Comes to The Rescue!

NOTE: if you are using WP-Super-Cache, this plugin might not work. It failed in my tests but still under investigation. Use with care.

With above been said, guys behind the plugin provide the “work around” that requires you to edit one of the core files of the wp-super-cache plugin but it still failed to work on my blog properly. I think it is my blog issue as I have seen some other strange things happening but need to make you aware.

What PHP Speedy For WordPress Does?

It joins all the CSS and Javascript files used on your blog, compresses them and then serves them from a cached location. A brilliant solution!

Download of the CSS and javascript files is one of the biggest hogs on your blog and this plugin nicely addresses that issue.

How to Verify?

There are couple tools I can suggest you use to verify the performance:

• OctaGate Site Timer - web based page load timer that will display what files slow your blog down
• Yahoo YSlow tool for Firefox - your best bet. Requires couple plugins to be added to firefox.

…but to actually know the results you will need to establish your baseline first and the re-test it.

1. Use whatever tool you choose and determine your blog home page performance WITHOUT the php speedy plugin. Write down your results.
2. Once your plugin is installed, configured and you have verified it works as designed (author have all the details on it) - perform same speed test again and compare. You can easily shave off quite a bit using this plugin.

Where to get it?

Well, a great question! Get it php speedy for WordPress here and use to to turn your blog into a peed demon!

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