How to fix unminified javaScript & CSS files
Issues with unminified, uncompressed, or uncached JavaScript and CSS files.
So these are all fairly similar. They all mean slightly different things, but they can usually all be taken care of, with one step.
And this is something I like to use a plugin for and I like to do that because it’s, it’s either a lot of manual labor that you, you really need some coding experience to know how to do, or you use a plugin.
Normally I don’t like using plugins if you don’t have to, but this is one of those cases where a plugin is definitely worth it.
So at the moment, we’re using a plugin called autoptimize, and it’s fairly simple to use.
It has some, as you know, the basic settings have a paid upgrade. If you want to get more advanced, do check out our resource guide for the are the most up-to-date recommendation.
There’s, there’s always options here and in terms of plugins, what we recommend this year might be different from next year, etc.
So you want to make sure you’re getting, whatever we recommend at the moment. But whatever you’re using, you’ll probably see something like this.
Once you install it, install the plugin, go to the settings for the plugin. You’ll probably see some basic options. I would say, start off with whatever looks like the most basic option.
So your JavaScript, you’ll want to optimize you’ll. If, if something is checked by default, I would probably leave that don’t check off any of the other boxes, for the time being, just kind of check, you know, check what looks to be the most basic settings.
Probably scroll down to the bottom and save those changes. There might be an option to empty your cash. Then go ahead and go back to your SEMrush audit and rerun that audit, because what happens a lot of times with JavaScript and CSS, you might do this and it might get rid of some of the errors in your, in your SEMrush audit, but create others a nd so that’s the reason I said, start off by doing the most basic because if you start off by doing everything here, let’s say you want to check all these that’s inevitably going to lead to other problems.
So start off by doing the basics, rerun your, your audit and what you want to do is you want to get rid of, what is reported as the errors in some rush.
And it’s okay if it leaves some, some warnings or notices, in this case, it’s, it’s fine because sometimes it’s a trade-off between, you know, something that is really important and something that is less important.
So as long as you can get rid of the errors, the big ones that will help to bring your score up, then I think you can, you can, after that, you can go back and you can check some additional boxes, at more advanced settings, but then go back and read, run your audit, because these extra boxes often have a tendency to create other, other problems that might be worse than the one you’re trying to resolve.
So, take that approach. It’s a little bit of, you know, hit and miss, some trial and error.
But that’s, that’s basically what you gotta do, do check out our resource guide to see what, what are some available options for plugins for this though?
Because it does change over the months and years .