Knowledgebase

Optimizing your website will keep it running smoothly and loading quickly for your site visitors and customers. These tips will help you keep your Magento install as speedy and error-free as possible.

• Enable Output Compression. Turning on the mod_deflate module will enable text, javascript, and css compression. In your Magento .htaccess file, look for the part which starts with <IfModule mod_deflate.c> and ends with </IfModule>. Remove the "#" from the beginnings of all the lines with commands in them, like this:

• Enable Expires Headers. This will make some HTTP requests cacheable. This will reduce CPU load and bandwidth consumption. You will need to edit the .htaccess file, starting from the <IfModule mod_expires.c> and ending with </IfModule>, and edit it to match this:

• Merge CSS and JS. This will further decrease the HTTP requests to your server. 

1. Log into the Magento administration area.
2. Select "System", then "Configuration", then "Developer".
3. Change "Merge JavaScript Files" to "yes".
4. Change "Merge CSS Files" to "yes".
5. Clear the Magento cache.

• Enable Flat Catalog. Magento uses long SQL queries and frequent reads. Flat Catalog merges data into one table and improves performance.

1. Log into the Magento administration area.
2. Select "System", then "Configuration", then "Catalog".
3. Under "Frontend" change "Use Flat Catalog Category" to "Yes".
4. Under "Frontend", change "Use Flat Catalog Product" to "Yes".
5. Clear the Magento cache.

• Database Logs. Magento database logs can become very large quite quickly. You can enable log cleaning this way:

1. Log into the Magento administration area.
2. Find "Advanced" on the left side and click "System".
3. Under the heading "Log Cleaning", change "Enable Log Cleaning" to "Yes" and set the Save Log for 14 days.
4. Select "Save Config".

• log.php Utility. Magento has a shell utility which you can configure with Cron or run manually.
  For manual configuration, log into your account with SSH and cd to the Magento directory. Enter this:

• log.php Cron.

1. Log into cPanel.
2. Click "Cron Jobs".

• Database Cleaning with phpMyAdmin. You will want to complete this task regularly. The cron job makes automating it easy.

1. Log into cPanel.
2. Click phpMyAdmin.
3. Select the database your Magento installation uses.
4. Select the following tables
   log_customer
   log_quote
   log_summary
   log_summary_type
   log_url
   log_url_info
   log_visitor
   log_visitor_infor
   log_visitor_online
5. Select the dropdown box "With Selected." and choose "Empty".
6. Click "yes" at the confirmation screen.