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@mfrgolfgti said in Is this site speed improvement legit?:

A client of ours has used a 3rd party company who charged them $300 to "speed up" their website. He is wondering if this is legitimate? In a very short period (one day), the site speed has improved from about 20 to 86 on desktop and 100 on mobile. This is on a Shopify site. As far as I can see from looking at the back end of the site, all that has been done is that a new theme has been uploaded. Nothing else has been done, eg all images look to be the same size, etc. When I asked how the work had been done so quickly, I was told "It was done by a highly professional team of Shopify web designers and developers." Has anyone come across this type of speed optimisation and can you tell me anything about it?

Hi there!

It is possible that the 3rd party company made some legitimate optimizations that improved the speed of the website. However, it's also important to be cautious and ensure that the improvements are sustainable and long-lasting.

One way to verify the legitimacy of the speed optimizations is to check the website's PageSpeed Insights score on Google. This will give you a better idea of how well the website performs in terms of speed and optimization.

It's also important to understand that website speed is affected by a variety of factors, such as hosting, caching, image optimization, and code optimization. A new theme can certainly contribute to improved speed, but it's unlikely to be the only factor at play.

In summary, while it's possible that the $300 speed optimization service was legitimate, it's important to verify the improvements and ensure that they are sustainable in the long run. It may be worth consulting with a professional web developer or SEO specialist to get a second opinion on the improvements made to the website.

Regards,
Bryce June

Yes that COULD be legit.
Some Shopify Themes are very very bad. A clean theme that only provides the functions that are necessary for this webshop can help. One could also use various techniques with the javascript, the tag manager, and lazy loading to achieve this.
It is also possible to use techniques to fool Google Pagespeed tester. So test the site with different tools and or ask a specialist if you do not trust the results. You can also check in Analytics what the average speed of clients is at the moment compared to previous.

@mfrgolfgti Honestly, I've never heard that only by uploading a new theme you can achieve such a result. I am curious now and would really like to hear from someone who's experienced with Shopify sites.