PrestaShop Speed & Core Web Vitals Audit

Front-end and Core Web Vitals work needs only the URL. Deeper PHP and database profiling benefits from read access, and we tell you exactly what helps.

The audit identifies what is hurting LCP, INP and CLS and where it comes from. Implementation is quoted separately if you want hands-on fixes.

Sometimes, but often the bigger wins are cache, queries and assets you already own. We do not sell hosting, so the recommendation is vendor-neutral.

No. We guarantee an honest, measured plan and stand behind the findings, not a synthetic number.

From the Performance Audit you receive a prioritized, plain-English plan. For each finding we set out three things clearly:

• What is making the store slow, the specific bottleneck, in concrete terms.
• Why it matters, the practical effect on real-world load time, server response and the experience for shoppers and crawlers.
• Exactly what to fix first, the next step, not a vague recommendation.

Findings are ranked by impact versus effort, so the changes that buy the most speed for the least work are clearly separated from larger pieces of optimisation. On a live store that ordering is often the most valuable part of the report: it tells you not just what is wrong, but the sequence in which to tackle it.

We name the culprit

Where a specific module, query or setting is responsible, we name it. If a particular module's hook is inflating response time, a specific query is missing an index, or a CCC or caching setting is misconfigured, we point to it directly. That precision means you, or your developer, can act on the exact cause instead of guessing and changing things at random, which on a complex PrestaShop install can easily make matters worse.

Real speed, not a vanity score

The aim throughout is real-world speed for shoppers and for Googlebot, faster pages that genuinely load quicker for visitors and are crawled more efficiently, rather than simply turning a Lighthouse badge green. A store can score well in a lab test and still feel slow in the field; the audit is written to improve the experience that actually counts, with the report structured so the plan can be executed directly.

Getting started is light on your side. We begin with a short scope to confirm your worst pain points, because performance work is far more effective when it is aimed at the pages and moments that actually hurt. Typical areas we pin down are:

• Slow category pages, often where layered navigation, filters and large product grids combine to drag down response time.
• Checkout. Where slowness directly costs sales and frustrates ready-to-buy customers.
• Admin / back office, sluggish order processing and catalogue management that eat into your team's time.
• Peak-load behaviour. How the store holds up under traffic spikes, sales events or campaigns.

Knowing which of these matters most to you shapes where the measurement effort goes, so the findings address your real problems rather than a generic profile.

Once the scope is agreed, we measure against your live shop. The real store under real conditions, which is the only way the numbers reflect what your shoppers and Googlebot actually experience.

How long it takes

Most audits are completed quickly once access is available. We confirm the expected timing with you after the short scoping step, since the realistic turnaround depends on the size of your store and the breadth of what we are measuring. The scoping conversation is brief and is the natural point at which we agree both the focus and the timeline.

Typically 3-5 business days from receiving access, with deep PHP/DB profiling at the upper end.

The PrestaShop Performance Audit measures your real shop under realistic conditions, not a single synthetic score taken in isolation. A one-off lab number tells you very little about how the store behaves for actual shoppers and for Googlebot; the audit is built to find the genuine bottlenecks. A specialist looks at the following layers:

PHP profiling

We profile the back end to find slow hooks, modules and code paths that inflate server response time. On PrestaShop, a single heavy module hooked into every page, or an expensive operation running on category and product display, is a very common cause of sluggish Time To First Byte, and profiling is what pinpoints it rather than guessing.

Database

We look for slow and N+1 queries, missing indexes and heavy joins. As catalogues and order history grow, queries that were fine at launch can quietly become the dominant cost of a page, and the fix is often a precise index rather than a broad change.

Caching & CCC

We review your caching stack end to end: Smarty compilation, Redis, full-page cache and the Combine-Compress-Cache (CCC) settings. Misconfigured caching is one of the highest-leverage performance areas on PrestaShop, and it is frequently left in a sub-optimal state.

Core Web Vitals

We assess LCP, CLS and INP as Google actually measures them, the field metrics that feed into page experience, rather than only a lab snapshot. Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift and Interaction to Next Paint each point to different underlying problems, from render-blocking assets to unstable layouts.

Image pipeline & CDN

Finally, we review the image pipeline and edge delivery: modern formats (WebP/AVIF), lazy-loading, and whether a CDN is serving assets efficiently from the edge. Images are usually the heaviest part of a storefront page, so this is often where the biggest real-world wins sit.

Because we measure your actual store across these layers, the findings reflect how your shop genuinely performs rather than a theoretical benchmark.

The audit is designed not to disrupt your shoppers. Profiling and measurement are carried out in a way that keeps the live store stable, typically read-only inspection combined with controlled measurement rather than anything that loads or stresses the site at the expense of real visitors.

The two principles that keep it safe are straightforward:

• Inspection is observational. Reviewing configuration, profiling code paths and examining queries are read-only activities. We are looking at how the store behaves, not changing how it runs.
• Measurement is controlled. Any active measurement is done deliberately and in a measured way, not as an uncontrolled load test pointed at your production checkout during business hours.

You stay in control of changes

Crucially, we do not deploy changes during the audit. The audit produces a plan; it does not touch your live configuration, templates or code. That means you stay in full control of what gets implemented and when. Nothing is altered on your store without your decision. You can review the recommendations, choose which to apply, and schedule them for a quiet window if you prefer. Separating measurement from implementation this way is exactly what lets the audit run safely against a live, trading store.