Slow food service from a popular restaurant can result in poor reviews, leading to less customer turnaround in the future. Similarly, a slow site speed can drive visitors away, reducing overall site traffic and search engine rankings.

Most eCommerce store owners, including those on Shopify and Magento, spend a lot of time and resources identifying ways to fix a slow-loading site without much success.

Fortunately, Google PageSpeed Insights helps you identify and fix issues pertaining to slow load times, increasing page speed.

The following guide provides in-depth information on Google PageSpeed Insights, and how eCommerce store owners like Magento can achieve a 90+ PageSpeed score.

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What is Google PageSpeed Insights?

PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free Google tool that assists website owners in measuring and improving the site’s loading time across mobile and desktop devices. It leverages an open-source technology called Lighthouse that performs numerous audits to collect, analyze, and evaluate data on a single URL. Based on this, PageSpeed Insights provides an overall page’s performance score.

Google PageSpeed Insights determine this performance score by combining lab data with real-world data from the Chrome User Experience Report dataset. The lab data, also called performance data, is collected in a controlled environment, i.e., simulation performed with a predefined device and network settings.

How Is Google PageSpeed Insights Score Calculated?

Website owners often think that PSI measures the total loading time for a web page; however, this is far from the truth. PSI tool instead focuses on “Progressive Web Metrics” to capture the user experience and determine the performance score.

Here are six scientific metrics that PSI uses to calculate your overall performance score (0-100).

• First Contentful Paint (FCP): time taken by the browser to display the first text or image of a page.
• First Meaningful Paint (FMP): time taken by the browser to display the page’s primary content.
• First CPU Idle: time taken by a page to become minimally interactive.
• Time to Interactive (TTI): time taken by a page to become fully interactive for the user.
• Speed Index (SI): how quickly the entire content on the page is visually displayed.

While these five metrics determine your PageSpeed score, they don’t contribute equally. The importance of each metric in descending order is as follows:

TTI > SI > FCP > First CPU Idle > FMP

Hence, site owners must prioritize more heavily weighted metrics for improving the performance score.

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What’s a Good Google PSI Score?

Once Google completes evaluating different metrics, it displays the PageSpeed score on a scale from 0 to 100. Based on the values of the weighted metrics, the aggregate performance is divided into the following three categories.

• Good: The PageSpeed score is 90 or above (in Green)
• Needs Improvement: Score is anywhere between 50 and 90 (in Orange)
• Poor: PageSpeed score is below 50 (in Red)

Most Magento store owners are obsessed over achieving 100/100 PageSpeed Insights score. By doing this, they often tend to overlook the most crucial aspect the PSI tool serves, i.e., recommendations.

The fundamental aim of Google PSI is to find performance issues on your eCommerce site, thus helping you optimize them for a fast actual and perceived loading speed.

Remember that your site visitors don’t care about your Google PSI score. They just want to view the site content as quickly as possible; however, a good Google PageSpeed will help you achieve this.

Here’s how Magento or other store owners can score higher on Google PSI, thus improving their site’s performance.

How to Increase Google PageSpeed Insights Score?

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Limit Plugins Usage

While most eCommerce store owners utilize plugins for added functionalities, too many plugins and other elements can increase your page load time. With hundreds of plugins available, businesses need to take time and assess what plugins are essential for their eCommerce site.

Avoid adding plugins unless absolutely necessary. Audit your site to identify irrelevant plugins and delete them. Besides, some plugins automatically minify code and resize images, thus improving page speed; however, determine whether adding such plugins is worth trading off with your page speed.

Eliminate Render Blocking Resources

Render blocking resources include JavaScript and CSS scripts that prevent your webpage from loading quickly. Whenever a user visits your eCommerce store, his browser downloads and processes these files before displaying the entire page, slowing the page loading time.

By eliminating such resources, you can reduce the number of requests a browser requires to fetch and render a webpage. Besides, inlining JavaScript and CSS code is highly effective in achieving a 90+ PageSpeed score. This technique incorporates JavaScript and CSS files directly into the initial HTTP response, allowing the browser to parse it instantly without making extra requests.

However, as this technique requires code changes, you’ll need thorough planning to execute this seamlessly.

Leverage Browser Caching

Caching allows browsers to save copies of your webpages, including logos, CSS files, and images, for a specified time. This lets the browser display the saved content quickly on future visits without making numerous requests to the website origin server, ensuring a faster page load time.

An efficient cache policy can help Magento store owners score 90+ on the Google PSI.

Image Compression and Optimization

Image compression is the easiest way for Magento store owners to attain a high PageSpeed Insights score. Media files and graphics contain considerable unused data that can drag the site’s performance and load time.

Resizing or compressing images can help reduce loading times, boosting your page’s performance. Ideally, you shouldn’t upload images larger than 1MB.

Besides, you can implement the “Lazy Loading” technique to defer offscreen images. This method allows the browser to only load immediately visible images instead of loading every image on the page, thus ensuring better performance.

Use a Content Delivery Network

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of servers from all over the world. It hosts your website locally to serve content from the closest server, thus reducing latency and improving user experience.

Moreover, CDN distributes your content on multiple servers, reducing the number of requests to the original server. As a result, CDN minimizes the risk of site overloading during heavy traffic, ensuring site stability and faster loading time.

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Bottom Line

Google PageSpeed Insights is a reliable tool that has gained tremendous importance over the years. It allows eCommerce store owners to analyze their site’s performance based on speed, mobile-friendliness, and code quality. In addition, these metrics deliver an accurate overview of common issues resulting in slow load time. This information is vital for businesses to deliver an exceptional user experience.

The post Complete Guide For Magento Optimization To Increase Google PageSpeed Insights appeared first on MageShield | Secure & simple magento maintenance.

In November 2015, Magento 2.0 was finally released to the world. A lot of speculations were doing the rounds that 3 years after this release, Magento would cease to support all the previous versions of Magento 1.x.

This means that by the end of 2018, the websites running on version 1.x would stop receiving the security updates (essential for their site safety), and the on-going support from Magento completely.

Why Should You Upgrade to Magento 2?

Running a store on an unsafe and outdated platform will lead to site slowdown and performance issues, irreparable bugs, loss of PCI compliances as well as security breaches – that can negatively impact your business.

You would also be losing on the competitive advantage to the upgraded sites, since no new feature would be introduced in the obsolete version of Magento.

And even though a few independent developers might be willing to support version 1.x for a couple of years to keep you going; their focus too, would eventually shift to the latest versions.

The technology with the newer version will significantly impact the administrative back end and the customer-facing front end of your store. The fact necessitates either upgrading the ecommerce platform to Magento 2.0, or simply changing the platform entirely.

Is It a Smooth Migration ?

No, the migration to Magento 2.0 is not automated like most other upgrades. In fact, it is slightly complicated and a time consuming process – since a lot depends upon a store’s intricacies and the extensions used.

The data migration tools have to be ‘customized’ before they can be used to transfer data such as store settings, product catalog, categories, order and sales data, customer data, promo rules, wishlists etc. from M1 database to M2 database.

Media files can also be copied and pasted at appropriate places on M2 database.

However, the theme and code customizations of the store are non-transferable, since they may involve numerous third party extensions. This means you would have to invest extra time in installing and resetting it all over again on Magento 2.0.

The transition to M2 may sound intimidating today and while some would still prefer sticking to the older versions; it will be unavoidable in the coming years. With the new businesses adapting Magento 2 to optimize their operations in order to drive growth, you would be left with no choice but to upgrade.

 Magento 2 Features

Make sure you do NOT use RAW and TIF file types for your images. Both are unusable for the web because of their large size and must be converted to JPEG, GIF or PNG before being uploaded.

• The new backend Admin panel has an intuitive drag-drop layout that will help in reducing the time to manage an online store. The user interface is optimized and friendly even for non-technical users.
• The responsive web design (more focus on mobile responsiveness) and faster performance due to full page caching will account for more sales and better SEO.
• Magento 2 easily integrates plenty of additional extensions, including the popular payment gateways and will also cater to video and theme integrations.
• Unlike the previous versions, the checkout process is more streamlined to increase the conversions and retain customers.
• It has easy installations, maintenance and updates, adding to its flexibilities.

Conclusion

Magento 2 is set to offer innovative opportunities to all businesses and developers across the world, to deliver an engaging omnichannel shopping experiences to their users.

The transition is a good opportunity for you to implement newer ideas. Discard what you don’t need and revamp your store for a more smoother and better functionality and enhanced customer experience.

Of course the sooner you move, the smoother the transition will be. You would have more time to catch up with the new technology, implement trial and error, and stay ahead of your competitors.

Not sure how to start ? Contact us for a free analysis of your Magento 2 upgrade.

Contact us for a FREE analysis

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Actively exploited Shoplift bug in Magento could compromise personal and credit card data on a very large scale.

The ebay owned web ecommerce platform Magento has recently discovered a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability or “shoplift bug” in its core code that can lead to complete compromise of any Magento-based store.

More than 200,000 online stores using Magento are at high risk because attackers can gain complete control with administrator access.

What steps did Checkpoint take after vulnerability discovery?

Security vendor Check Point uncovered the flaw and disclosed it privately first to ebay with a couple of suggested fixes before the public announcement.

The security alert was sent to all users both through email and a dashboard notification but Magento does not currently include the patch in its official edition. Users will have to log in to get the patch and apply it.

What do I need to do to safeguard my store?

Checkpoint said that the vulnerability can affect any Magento based store and has urged to apply the security patch immediately to fix the flaw if not done so already. The patch was released on Feb 9,2015, SUPEE-5344, and is available to download here.

If you’d like to watch a demo of a way the RCE vulnerability can be exploited, Checkpoint has posted a video here.

What type of attack is it?

The vulnerability is actually composed of multiple vulnerabilities that eventually allow an unauthenticated hacker to execute PHP code on the web server.

The attacker bypasses all security mechanisms and gains full control of the system and its database, risking credit card information or financial and personal data.

There are a large number of Magento stores using both Community and Enterprise Editions that are still vulnerable.

Unpatched ecommerce sites remain under compromise threat

Check Point researcher Netanel Rubin, responsible for discovering the vulnerability, said that they are not aware of any current exploit.

But the bad news is that hackers have picked up on the advisory and are targeting unpatched applications, according to Analysts with Sucuri Security.

About 30% of ecommerce sites use Magneto platform for their online store and close to half of them remain unpatched. This not only represents a serious threat but also represents the need for understanding that security is a process requirement in every business.

Mageshield provides you the security patched solution for your Magento store as well. Please act now to make sure that your Magento store is secure!

The post Major vulnerability discovered in Magento ecommerce. Apply Security Patch Immediately appeared first on MageShield | Secure & simple magento maintenance.

It’s so easy that you can get started anytime. All you need to do is install the extension, configure it from admin panel, download the app builds and release them on Google play and App store.

Reason #1: Cost Effective

Mofluid system is highly customizable and allows you to use all the great features of an easy-to-use Magento plus the power of a native mobile app. Thus, it will cost you just a fraction of what a made-from-scratch app would be.

Most developers charge $20,000 – $100,000 per platform. (See this calculator to prove our point.) It’s not easy or cheap to make an app (or a website, for that matter) from scratch. They can easily and quickly make an app for the fraction of the cost.

Reason #2: It reduces time to market

Others need months or even years to launch a similar mobile app strategy. With Mofluid ,you’ll need just a few hours to do so! The only thing you’ll regret is the time and money you lost before using Mofluid.

Reason #3: Customize the look and feel of your mobile shops with a few clicks

Mofluid unique widget system allows you to set up a customized mobile app with just a few clicks. No programming skills are needed, with their intuitive admin interface. You can choose your brand’s color, upload logo, banner sliders so your magento shopping apps will look like YOURS. You can even pick layout themes that you prefer (Modern theme, Elegant theme).

Reason #4: Off the shelf solution

When you buy a new suit, you want the style to be tailored and customized to you. This is the best way to ensure the suit fits.

While choosing mobile enterprise apps, it’s not much different. Mofluid is off the shelf solution, mobile apps that are designed and built specifically for your needs end up being a better fit – and investment – for your company.

Choosing the best solution is a big decision and since the final decision requires a financial and time commitment, the options must be fully considered to ensure the right decision is made. Here are four characteristics, which will aid in evaluating and understanding how Mofluid is the right choice to make :

• Compatibility with Android as well as IOS platform
• Seamlessly Integrates Magento commerce store with your shopping app.
• Excellent performance of mobile apps on various dimensions – speed, resource intensity, etc
• Scalable of handling demands that can vary and spike unexpectedly

Reason #5: Engages your customers

Mofluid not only creates an app but also engages your customers. Mofluid is integrated with pushwoosh. Pushwoosh is the push notification service that’s highly scalable and offers good value for money. It offers audience segmentation and the ability to schedule batches of push notifications. So, with Mofluid establish a deep connection with your audience by engaging users via meaningful messages and content.

Reason #6: Broadest Payment options

Mofluid keeps adding popular payment gateways. Your magento shopping apps already can work with almost ALL popular gateways.

To satisfy more merchants across countries, Mofluid keeps updating with new payment gateways regularly and has the largest payment gateway plugins available – right now. Click here to check
out the existing payment gateways.

Reason #7: Upgrade and maintainability

With every new release they delivers great new features that will make your app a delight to use every time. They keep upgrading to invent new releases which helps in enhancing the mobile app to the latest trend.
When it come to the support and maintenance, Mofluid provide instant gratification, and they expect concerns and errors to be addressed rapidly and sufficiently across multiple channels.They helps brands deliver exceptional customer support to their customers.

Reason #8: Workflow & User experience measured for top brands like YepMe, Mobileistic

Mofluid has already worked with the brands like YepMe, Mobileistic. Check out their mobile app to measure the performance of Mofluid.

The post 8 Reason Why You Should Use Mofluid – Review appeared first on MageShield | Secure & simple magento maintenance.

Another critical Zero-Day Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in WordPress was announced and patched on Monday, after fixing a similar flaw earlier this week.

The vulnerability, discovered by Finland based security firm Klikki Oy, gives full control to an attacker to the web server posing a critical threat to millions of sites that are powered by the popular content management system.

How does the attack work?

The exploit works by injecting Javascript code into the comments section of the WordPress site by a malicious attacker. The script executes when someone views the code.

The cross site scripts are considered as one of the most notorious and common web flaws allowing the hacker to run any arbitrary, bug infected code on the server.

If the script is triggered by a logged-in administrator under default setup, where comments need admin approval, the attacker can leverage the flaw to execute rogue code on the web server through the plugin and theme editors.

Now after the first comment approval, attacker is free to do anything like change admin password, create new admin or take over complete system.

How was the vulnerability discovered?

Jouko Pynnonen of Klikki Oy is credited for discovering the flaw. The detailed the proof-of-concept code can be found on their website.

The vulnerability bears resemblance to another flaw reported last year by researcher Cedric Van Bockhaven in his blog, here.

If you need a visual proof-of-concept attack in progress, watch this video by Klikki Oy –

https://youtu.be/OCqQZJZ1Ie4

How can I protect my website against the vulnerability?

Site owners and administrators are urged to immediately download WordPress 4.2.1 or press “Update Now” from Dashboard → Updates.

WordPress versions 3.9.3, 4.1.1, 4.1.2, and the latest version 4.2 are vulnerable to the XSS exploit.

If your WordPress site uses its commenting system, it is prone to the XSS attack. The vulnerability not only affects comment section but complete WordPress core and plug-ins, so be warned and upgrade the system. In the meantime, disable the comments, do not approve any comments and utilize a Firewall.

Mageshield also provides you the security patched solution for your WordPress site. Please act now to make sure that your WordPress site is secure!

The post Millions at risk with Critical WordPress Zero-day Vulnerability appeared first on MageShield | Secure & simple magento maintenance.