Hi Li-An,
Ouch…”interrogation” is such an unfriendly word…I’m going to pretend you said “some questions” instead, as I hope that’s closer to what you meant. 🙂
I’ll be happy to answer your questions.
I think you might be misinterpreting those results. Many of those changes are not caused by WP-SpamShield. For example, the total number of requests increased by 6, and WP-SpamShield definitely does not add 6 new external scripts, it adds 2, which is explained in the FAQ you referenced. Also, your overall PageSpeed and YSlow grades (A and B) did not change, even though the sub-scores changed. If you noticed, both the page load time and page size were lower after you switched to WP-SpamShield.
Also, you are ignoring the largest issue that PageSpeed and YSlow don’t address…the actual page load time….this is what users care about, and what developers and site owners need to focus on when optimizing their sites.
Your page load time is over 3 seconds in both cases. An optimized site should be loading in 0.5-1.5 seconds or less, or as close to that as possible. So, despite having A and B scores, your site is not fully optimized yet, because the page load time needs to be improved dramatically. Right now that is the slowdown you need to be focusing on improving if you want an optimized site.
It’s unfortunate that PageSpeed and YSlow metrics don’t prioritize page load time. Those metrics also don’t take into account what is happening on the server side of things, for example, database optimization, whether your site is using page caching or not, configuration and redirection issues in .htaccess and php.ini, etc.
If you would like further help interpreting the results of the GTmetrix tests, or some pointers on how to optimize your site further and get that page load time down, please head over to the WP-SpamShield Support Form (our main support channel) and we’ll be happy to help you out.
– Scott
