Increasing site performance

To make CS-Cart pages load faster:

1. Store images in the file system of your server:
   1. The images will be stored in the images directory on your server. There will be made 4 subdirectories for each type of images (product, category, detailed images and common images) in the directory. Make sure that the images directory has the 777 permissions before moving the images.

      NOTE: To get to know the directory or file permissions use a file manager in the Control panel of your website or an FTP client (most of them have functions to view and change the permissions) or the ls -l command (on a Unix-based server with terminal access to it).
      

   2. Log in your administrator panel and click on the Settings link in the Administration side box.
   3. Select File system in the Images location option and click on the Update button to save the changes.
2. Remove the languages that you do not use on your site:
   1. Log in your administrator panel and click on the Languages link in the Administration side box.
   2. Delete the languages that you do not use.

      NOTE: Delete the languages, not just disable them.
      

   3. Optimize the database to reclaim the unused space and to defragment the datafile:
      1. Open the DB Backup/Restore page in the administrator panel. There is the Maintenance section on the page.
      2. Remember the current database size and click on the Optimize database button. The database size will be decreased if possible.
3. Disable JavaScript pop-up menu:
   1. Open the Appearance settings link in the Look and feel side box.
   2. There is the Categories menu style setting there. Not it is set to EMenu. Try the Plain and Dynamic options, they do not use JavaScript to display categories, that will reduce page loading time.
4. Use HTML catalog. The aim of HTML catalog is to increase the page loading performance and make the site more friendly for search engine. You can generate a static version of your product catalog, that will be accessible at http://your_domain.com/catalog/index.html. It is possible to make http://your_domain.com/catalog/index.html the first page of your site, so when a visitor types http://your_domain.com in his browser, he will see http://your_domain.com/catalog/ static HTML catalog (that loads very fast) at first. He clicks on categories, product links and sees the HTML catalog pages (notice URLs of the pages). When he clicks on "Add to cart", logs in, etc, he will be redirected to the so-called dynamic pages (that are generated by PHP - notice URLs of such pages).
   

   To generate HTML catalog:

   1. Log in your administrator panel and click on the HTML catalog link in the Administration side box on the right.
   2. Click on the Generate catalog button.
      

      NOTES:
      - By default it is presumed that a customer enters HTML catalog once and does not do it again ever after he enters dynamic pages (adds a product to cart, logs in, etc).
      - HTML catalog does not reflect changes that may be made on dynamic pages. If you changed the text on the home page and can see the changes at http://your_domain.com/index.php. If you look at http://your_domain.com/catalog/index.html, you will not see the changes. In other words, if you add/delete/modify categories, products, etc, then you should generate catalog once again to update static HTML pages.