Cloudflare caching doesn't significantly boost our webpage performance

[user69315]

We are testing the “Cache Everything” setting with limited pages as a trial.
https://www.xtract.io/solutions/points-of-interest-data is the page we are testing first.
The speed on mobile before the test was 43 and after setting “Cache Everything”, it went to 55, while checking in https://pagespeed.web.dev/ which is an increase.
But, we were expecting far better results with Cloudflare. The only big factor affecting the speed is “Reduce unused JavaScript” with 1.6 seconds (according to pagespeed.web.dev).

Are we missing any other setting, or is this the peek improvement we can expect from Cloudflare?

[albert]

That page is loading lots of JavaScript from external domains, which Cloudflare naturally cannot cache.

If you haven’t already, try enabling Rocket Loader in the Speed tab to see if that helps.

[user69315]

Thanks for the response. Our site is not a WordPress site. It’s all code.
Any other methods that you could suggest?

[albert]

Yes, load the scripts from your own domain so Cloudflare can cache them.

[gtavaresdev]

It’s great to hear that the “Cache Everything” setting has improved the speed of your website on mobile. However, it’s important to note that there are many factors that affect website speed, and it’s not guaranteed that using Cloudflare will always result in a significant improvement in speed.

Regarding the “Reduce unused JavaScript” factor identified by pagespeed.web.dev, this indicates that there may be unused JavaScript code on your website that is not necessary for its functionality. Removing this unused code can help to further optimize the speed of your website.

In addition to using the “Cache Everything” setting, there are other Cloudflare features that can help to improve website speed, such as:

1. “Auto Minify” feature that can reduce the size of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
2. “Rocket Loader” feature that can prioritize the loading of important website content and defer non-critical JavaScript until after the page has loaded.
3. “Polish” feature that can optimize images on your website to reduce their size and improve load times.

I would suggest trying these features out and checking the website speed again to see if there is any further improvement. If you’re still not seeing the level of improvement you expected, please provide more details about your website’s setup and we can look further into possible optimizations.

[user69315]

1. “Auto Minify” has already been switched on, but we use PHP extension instead of HTML.
2. Have just switched “Rocket Loader” on. Will monitor the speed.
3. “Polish” is a paid feature. We have to see that Cloudflare is worth it, before thinking of upgrading to a subscription.

Thanks for the detailed statements.

[user69315]

We can do that with the files that could be hosted. But, the biggest files are of Google Analytics, which can’t be served from our domains. We are implementing Rocket Loader and check for improvements.