Why is my store speed going down, and how do I fix it?

[memelordmartin]

My store speed has decreased from 78 to 38 over the past three months. I've added and deleted apps. Currently, I'm at 6 apps. The only one I could possibly delete is facebook, since I'm not presently running facebook ads, but delete apps to increase speed doesn't sound like the go-to solution.

What else is there?

[oscprofessional]

Hi @ memelordmartin,

you need to check your store with speed optimization purpose, If we delete any application in our shopify store, code will not be deleted completely,

you need to check the code in your theme.

You need to work on your website performance’s speed with following point that I have mentioned below.
Low mobile page speed may kill your traffic and affect your conversion.

In order to Improve website speed you need to:
- Remove unnecessary code on a high priority basis.
- Compressed images or Defer off-screen images.
- Web Pages need to be Minify.
- Reduce JavaScript execution time
- Minimize main-thread work
- Beware of excessive liquid loops
- Decrease thumbnail image size
- Weigh the benefits of installing another app

By fixing these issues, your website speed score can definitely improve. For more details please check and select the plan you wish to select -
https://www.oscprofessionals.com/shopify-performance-optimization/

If anything is missed out or unclear then don't hesitate to ask
Thank You!

[JoesIdeas]

Hi @memelordmartin  I have a couple solutions for you:

1) Remove any lingering app code. When you delete an app, that app loses access to your store so cannot cleanup afterwards. Most of the time you can find the old app code by reading your theme.liquid file and deleting any old snippets / scripts that are not in use / from old apps.

*Make sure you do this on a duplicate theme so you don't risk altering your live site.

2) Run your site through the Shopify Analyzer to see if there are any optimization issues with your theme or images. That's a free tool my team built for the Shopify community, it's geared specifically for Shopify sites, and the scoring is based on 1,000+ Shopify sites we've optimized.

3) When you say "store speed", I'm guessing you mean the Shopify speed score. If that's the case, couple things to know based on common misconceptions we see: a) The score is not equal to actual speed b) most successful stores we've seen score in the range of 20 - 35 c) the score is largely dependent on apps, so in many cases the sacrifice for a high score means either building custom coded solutions or losing functionality.

More details about those here: https://speedboostr.com/shopify-speed-tool

Lastly, be cautious of the previous poster OSC, they've been caught stealing, being unethical, and breaking Shopify terms of service on multiple occasions. (Details here: https://speedboostr.com/shopify-partners-caught-stealing/#copyright-osc). Just giving a heads up so you know the risks of who you'd be working with if you contact them.

If you need professional help feel free to reach out to my team at speedboostr.com/contact. If you prefer to handle in-house, we have free guides linked from the Shopify Analyzer, also our Shopify optimization guide with details of most of what can be reasonably optimized for a Shopify site.

Good luck on your project, oh one last thing, when you delete an app, to avoid the uncertainty, you can just reach out to the app developer to ask if there's anything that needs to be removed (best practice is to send you an email with instructions but most apps don't do that).

[memelordmartin]

@JoesIdeas 

Thanks for the insights and tips. And the warning about the previous poster. Lots of scam artists in this realm, sadly.