Siteground Speed Test (With & Without Static Caching)

In an effort to get a sense of the effectiveness of Siteground’s Static Caching, 90 speed tests were conducted with and without Static Caching.

Methods

Each test was performed using Pingdom.com’s Website Speed Test, using the San Jose, California location option. Each test was conducted with the HTTP URL rather than the HTTPS URL.

In all, roughly 9 tests were run each day for 10 days. (Although 3 tests were omitted on August 19th, and were made up for on August 24th.) Load time results were recorded, and averaged at the end of the study.

Results

The following HTML table was generated by the Tableizer Excel to HTML conversion site:

Site Load Speed With & Without Siteground Static Caching

Date	Time	No Static Caching Load Time (sec)	With Static Caching Load Time (sec)
8/13/2018	11:40	2.45	1.37
		1.38	1.35
		1.16	1.33
	18:06	1.35	1.18
		1.28	1.18
		1.40	1.17
	22:56	1.48	1.43
		1.36	1.21
		1.17	1.15
8/14/2018	13:05	1.70	1.43
		1.47	1.24
		1.74	1.42
	19:41	1.52	1.14
		1.34	1.38
		1.34	1.18
	22:30	1.18	1.15
		1.38	1.19
		1.14	1.13
8/15/2018	16:30	1.51	1.18
		1.22	1.12
		1.19	1.13
	19:53	2.62	1.22
		1.18	1.92
		1.76	1.36
	22:25	1.39	1.13
		1.14	1.35
		1.39	1.41
8/16/2018	10:40	1.32	1.14
		1.14	1.14
		1.15	1.11
	13:13	1.19	1.17
		1.36	1.17
		1.33	1.19
	17:56	2.43	1.40
		1.16	1.44
		1.15	1.13
8/19/2018	14:32	1.69	1.19
		1.12	1.14
		1.28	1.13
	17:28	1.19	1.16
		1.39	1.41
		1.44	1.38
8/20/2018	10:54	1.85	1.45
		1.38	1.42
		1.18	1.38
	15:55	1.25	1.23
		1.20	1.38
		1.21	1.15
	18:48	1.37	1.44
		1.15	1.27
		1.17	1.18
8/22/2018	12:47	1.49	1.16
		1.27	1.33
		1.15	1.17
	17:16	1.26	1.34
		1.13	1.18
		1.35	1.37
	20:45	1.37	1.18
		1.32	1.15
		1.35	1.13
8/23/2018	10:55	1.69	1.42
		1.37	1.33
		1.17	1.17
	13:47	1.19	1.21
		1.26	1.34
		1.35	1.27
	16:28	1.63	1.16
		1.27	1.35
		1.30	1.37
8/24/2018	12:09	1.45	1.39
		1.45	1.36
		1.46	1.44
	15:22	1.19	1.17
		1.44	1.12
		1.35	1.12
	18:18	1.30	1.26
		1.17	1.21
		1.36	1.42
	20:36	1.14	1.18
		1.20	1.34
		1.67	1.39
8/25/2018	10:33	1.50	1.38
		1.39	1.15
		1.19	1.19
	12:48	1.20	1.18
		1.38	1.20
		1.18	1.32
	15:35	1.65	1.14
		1.40	1.13
		1.21	1.12
n		90	90
Average		1.37	1.26
Std Dev		0.27	0.13

Siteground’s Static Caching option improved the average load speed of this WordPress installation by 0.11 seconds (1.26 sec vs 1.37 sec).

Static Caching also halved the variability of load speeds (the standard deviation of load speeds with Static Caching was 0.13 vs 0.27 without).

Conclusions

Siteground’s Static Caching option appears to work, and will be used on Ancient Greek Keyboard from now on. (NB: Remember to turn this off when doing CSS work!)

In addition, future speed tests will use a smaller sample size (about 36, instead of 90) in order to reduce testing time.

Finally, it should be noted that these load times were obtained prior to activation of social media button plugins, and may not represent current load times. However, the relative difference between load times with & without Static Caching is expected to remain the same.

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Other posts in this series:

1. Siteground Speed Test (With & Without Static Caching)
2. Speed Test of Swift Performance Lite plugin
3. Caching Plugin Speed Tests: Swift Performance Lite vs. W3 Total Cache
4. Speed Test: W3 Total Cache With Autoptimize
5. Speed Test of WP-Rocket plugin (default settings)
6. Speed Test of WP-Rocket plugin (additional settings)
7. WP Rocket Speed Test (with & without SiteGround Static Caching)