GTMetrix reports that my store loading time is slow

GTmetrix (https://gtmetrix.com/) is popular tool used to measure website speed.

While the tool can be quite useful in some cases, we need to properly understand the values it displays and take their figures with a pinch of salt.

For example, it may be shocking to see a high number in the 'Fully Loaded Time' field:

In cases like these, there a mismatch between what GTmetrix measures as 'Fully Loaded Time' and what we understand as loading times in the real world.

GTmetrix 'Fully Loaded Time' takes into account the last time that, in their tests, some server resource is invoked. As our app gathers usage statistics for the stats module (as described in the How the stats data are gathered? article), it might alter that GTmetrix figure. In this case, it does not mean that your page took 22.30 seconds to load, it means that, after 22.30 seconds, a server request was made to send the app usage data.

We should always check the website for ourselves to see the real loading times. We have seen many times GTmetrix reporting loading times above 20 seconds on stores which load smoothly within 2 or 3 seconds.

Anyway, if you feel that your store loading time is still slow in comparison, please do not hesitate to contact us for further clarification.