I checked your website and it seems okay -- I'm using Firefox. I can only assume that no one mentioned this due to it being too obvious, but are you optimizing your MYSQL db?
I haven't downloaded any additional plugins to reduce the page load time. I have been making an effort to reduce image sizes in my blog posts. Since a majority of my pages are blog posts, this is important. I am considering cutting down my header image to only 200px width. I will then place my horizontal leaderboard next to it. This will increase my page fold & give me a much smaller sized header. I do feel the site loses some personality with a small logo header though...
If you install the firefox firebug and page speed plug-ins, you will get a better idea of where to focus your attention. These tools will help you spot slowdowns caused by html, css and javascript. In addition, this is a good way to avoid removing things that aren't actually causing delays.
The page speed tool has a chrome extension. Search Google for "page speed tool for chrome". I have noticed that Facebook buttons take a while to load and for this reason, I substituted the like button code from Facebook with a plain html link.
I've noticed that the facebook code is slow... they need to get it together! Thanks for the "Page speed tool" plug, i'm installing now.
No problem. Earlier I mentioned how I added html links for the Facebook buttons on my site, but I forgot to provide a link to the pages — here is the link http://www.trackdailydeal.com/ (take a look at the share links). Of course the design of the links can be enhanced by using images rather than text.
Another thought from all the good ones already mentioned. You might want to take a look at Cloudflare. It is free and can often help speed up a website by caching a lot of the static elements in their content delivery network. Does not cost anything to try it. https://www.cloudflare.com/ I have had some good success with it to speed up sites.
I just examine the site. and found some issue with images.. #1. your theme is displaying images after processing. Its better to use direct link of images instead of php processed images., As that takes time to process image data and then send display it on page. http://rt-now.com/wp-content/themes/thesis_17/lib/scripts/thumb.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Frt-now.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F10%2Frt-now-fat-joe.jpg&w=240&h=160&zc=1&q=100 Code (markup): instead you customize your theme not to use processed images and use just link after src= query from above line. #2. You have installed some plugin which is for google analytics which is on top of the body. Always put Google Analytics code at the end of the page. for that just goto theme folder and download footer.php and copy your code there. and upload it. Remove that plugin. Regards Prashant P Patil
Hi, I am adding some more ideas. Look at some elements styling, for example: <div class="post-5016 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-random tag-coca-cola tag-coca-cola-can-color tag-package-and-design tag-polar-bear-can tag-polar-bears tag-white-can tag-white-coke-can tag-why-is-the-coke-can-white tag-world-wildlife-fund teaser teaser_right" id="post-5016"> This is not an great way to style your ellements, for that you would only need one class to do that ( this ads few bytes to the html page load) also to include some of the resources: <img class="thumb alignleft" src="http://rt-now.com/wp-content/themes/thesis_17/lib/scripts/thumb.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Frt-now.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F09%2Fmacmillerblueslidepark.jpg&w=240&h=160&zc=1&q=100" width="240" height="160" alt="Thumbnail image for Music Video: Mac Miller – Party On 5th Ave" /> reduce the src to relative path - this also reduces the size content. Do this for all your elements, and will be better, but pay attention to images, javascript and css, the size is very big. Thanks Radu
This question comes up a lot in this forum. Smashingmagazine has a good article on it : LINK Social media widgets can be removed one at a time to see what kind of speed they are costing you. It looks like you are concerned about the google penalty of having a slow loading page. If I am right, simply switch to social bookmarking. If you have content that people are interested in, the traffic will naturally flow, as the web is created to do. Good luck !
Although my page speed has improved, Google Webmaster Tools still has me at 9.1 seconds (slower than 92%).
^my mistake.. that's kind of irrelevant since it's a average over time. The latest stats on the graph show ~5/6 seconds to load, which matches Pingdom. Right now im installing the WP Minify wordpress plugin to compress css&js
"Just a quick note that you don't want to rely on Webmaster Tools per se for this kind reporting (relies on people that have the Google Toolbar installed). Pingdom and Webpagetest.org should be always used to compare." While you mentioned turning off some plugins, you should also remove any that are inactive as well.
Check this post: http://www.cookielessdomain.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-boost-the-loading-speed-of-your-website/