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The term “minify” means removing unnecessary characters from source code. It is a Process of minimizing code and markup in the web pages and script files. These characters include whitespaces, line breaks, comments, and block delimiters, which are useful for us but unnecessary for the machines. We minify the files of a website containing CSS, HTML, and Javascript code so that the web browser can read them faster. Minifying your data can lead the page to load faster and give better performance than websites that have not been minified. Websites are created with code in a format so that we humans can read. This formatting makes the code more readable to the human eye, but it also introduces spaces that, well, can take up space that a web browser doesn’t need. Minification can dramatically improve site speed and accessibility.
One widespread practice is to minify that code, and by Minifying your website, it is usually safe. But if you’re not careful, it can cause many problems. Minification alters the content size and reduces file size by stripping unwanted spaces, formatting, and characters. The study shows that more than half of mobile users leave a site that loads longer than 3 seconds. Therefore, if your website does not load quickly, you will lose site visitors in a matter of time. But having a faster loading website can also boost the number of visitors to your site. Fast loading sites can also influence the site’s position in organic search results and enrich the user’s experience. In this article, we’ll discuss minification and learn its benefits to the website and the effects of not minifying a website.

Benefits of Minification

• First of all, minifying resources can lead to site speed and accessibility, directly giving us a wholly better experience.
• It is also beneficial for users accessing websites through a limited plan and would like to save on their bandwidth usage while surfing the web at the same time.
• Minifying code can reduce file by 30% – 40% or sometimes even by 50%.
• Data do not need to be decompressed before using, and also, It is faster in loading and improves UX and SEO.
• Fewer unnecessary files to retrieve and download means the website will load faster.

How to minify assets?

• Shrink your images: to shrink the file size of a copy. You can use a different format. If you currently have .png photos, you can convert them to compressed .jpg images without losing much detail.
• Use the cache: Content management systems like WordPress have plugins that will cache the latest version of your pages. They display it to your users so that the browser isn’t forced to generate that page every single time dynamically.
• Clear up redirects: There are some redirects you can use, including a permanent 301 redirect and temporary 307 redirects. But too many redirects can confuse the browser and lead to slow loading times sometimes.
• Optimize Scripts and Styles: if you know your way around the documents that make up a website, it’s good to improve them as much as possible. Instead of including the same code on every page, move CSS rules or JavaScript snippets into an external file.
• Look into creating an AMP: If you have a site with a lot of traffic or are ready for a redesign and want a blazing-fast place, setting up an AMP( accelerating mobile page) might be the solution for you.

Minification Drawback

• The minified version of code comes without white space or a new path in between. Therefore, if there is an error, the developer tool will say the problem is in line 1, and it is impossible to say which part of that big compressed one line is causing the problem.
• All the variable names are changed to single letters, and it’s hard to understand what the program does, primarily if some other developer has written it.
• Minifying changes cannot be made quickly, and most importantly, the code is not very easy to understand.
• Performing and managing minification can be cumbersome.
• Manual minification is a bad practice and can become virtually impossible where large files are concerned.
• Therefore, people don’t go for minification at an early stage.

Conclusion

There was a time when the internet just started, and it took a long time to load. But now times have changed, 2009’s Internet speed won’t work in 2019. The whole internet idea has upgraded to another level. A website’s speed can also contribute to the rise and fall of the conversion rate. Every time you shave off losing time, you boost a customer and trust in your site. The first 5 seconds of the page’s loading time can have the highest impact on conversion rates. When website users are accustomed to faster loading time across the web, slower sites are penalized when visitors abandon the site visit in favor of a faster website to make a transaction.
Compared to other digital marketing challenges, page speed is a more straightforward challenge to address, and it also has measurable results. To improve your site’s loading speed first, you have to wait and see how long it takes to load. And then work on it. Minifying Websites can result in many benefits given above with also some drawbacks. But minifying is always an excellent option to keep up the loading speed, space, and ease. Once you fix the basics, start working on more advanced strategies to improve the website’s loading time. Even fractions of a second can help improve it and give better experience.