The SEO analyzer is saying that my WordPress site doesn't have the CSS and JavaScript files minified. Is there a way to minify the files without using plugins? If not, please suggest a plugin. Thanks in advance.
without a plugin you’d need to add some some minification libraries to your server and schedule a job to find all js and css files in your web directory and minify them.
among plugins autoptimize is the most popular option.
i personally don’t minify assets any more. most assets that ship with wordpress are already minified, plus the benefits of compression (gzip, zstd, brotli) kinda negate the need for minification. for example, let’s say a 100kb css file becomes 65kb with minification. after gzip compression, the unminified css becomes 30kb while the minified one becomes 25kb. with brotli the numbers may be 25kb and 22kb.
these are non-negligible differences, but also not end of the world if you skip the minification, especially as minification can occasionally scramble some files.
There are tones online tools, with quick Google search that you can minify your js/css files. I use npm and have some scripts in package.json to do the build the files in correct folders
without a plugin you’d need to add some some minification libraries to your server and schedule a job to find all js and css files in your web directory and minify them.
among plugins autoptimize is the most popular option.
i personally don’t minify assets any more. most assets that ship with wordpress are already minified, plus the benefits of compression (gzip, zstd, brotli) kinda negate the need for minification. for example, let’s say a 100kb css file becomes 65kb with minification. after gzip compression, the unminified css becomes 30kb while the minified one becomes 25kb. with brotli the numbers may be 25kb and 22kb.
these are non-negligible differences, but also not end of the world if you skip the minification, especially as minification can occasionally scramble some files.
There are tones online tools, with quick Google search that you can minify your js/css files. I use npm and have some scripts in package.json to do the build the files in correct folders