5 Essential Spring Cleaning Tips
Eliminate cobwebs and fine-tune performance
1. Review Your Modules, Apps, and Plugins
Platform extensions solve problems, but these business "problems" change over time. What once was a key feature may now be of minor importance, but this feature still lives on, extracting performance juice from your visitors and search engines.
Deactivating unnecessary extensions will:
- Reduce monthly subscription costs
- Improve website performance
- Enhance security
Action: Take inventory of all the extensions running on your platform.
Once you have a list of your website's extensions, it's time to review each one. Some will likely be no longer needed, and others will have some question marks. The spring cleaning "win" is to eliminate those that no longer serve a purpose.
How do I get my list of plugins/apps/modules?
Adobe Commerce / Magento 2
Unfortunately, you need assistance from your development agency partner. The good news is it should take a developer less than five minutes. They need to run this code:
bin/magento module:status
You'll get an output that looks like:
List of enabled modules: Magento_Store Magento_AdminAdobeIms Magento_Backend Magento_Eav Magento_Customer Magento_Catalog Magento_Sales Magento_Checkout Magento_Payment ...
You can skip anything that starts with Magento_. You should be able to do a Google search for most modules to find out their purpose with two exceptions:
- Your custom-built modules. If you don't know what it does, request more information from your agency partner. You can likely have this removed.
- Supporting modules to a 3rd-party module. For example, the ParadoxLabs_TokenBase module provides functionality for ParadoxLabs_AuthorizeNet.
Shopify
Navigate to Settings (lower left corner) -> Apps and sales channels (left links).
BigCommerce
Once logged into your admin panel, click Apps > My apps.
WooCommerce
In your admin panel, navigate to WooCommerce >
Bonus
Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce apps need to be updated to the latest version. It may be unwise to update indiscriminately, so review the potential challenges with your development partner.
How do I disable something without it affecting my store?
Not sure if something's being used? Try turning off one module at a time and testing the related functionality. Even eliminating just two unused modules is progress worth celebrating.
2. Clean Up Google Tag Manager
Tag Manager configurations can quickly become cluttered with outdated or unnecessary tags. One merchant discovered hundreds of unused tags in their system—removing them significantly improved their page speed.
Before making changes, consult with your development and marketing teams to avoid disabling essential functionality. Also consider whether certain tags need to trigger on every page or if they can be limited to specific sections, like article pages.
3. Double-check your site speed
Google's CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report) tool shows your page speed performance over time. If you notice deterioration, investigate the cause.
A common culprit? Oversized images. Those beautiful seasonal photos your marketing team just uploaded might be 10MB files that are dramatically slowing down your site. Optimizing images is one of the easiest ways to improve performance.
4. Review Your Product Catalog
Those products you haven't sold in years but still display on your website? They're consuming your Google search crawl quota and potentially damaging user experience.
However, don't simply delete old product pages. Instead:
- Identify which outdated products still attract traffic
- Set up redirects to relevant, current products
- Alternatively, add prominent links pointing visitors to newer alternatives
This approach preserves SEO value while improving the customer journey.
5. Check Your Website's Accessibility Score
Website accessibility can deteriorate over time as new content and features are added. Poor accessibility limits who can use your site and exposes your business to potential legal issues.
The WAVE Chrome browser extension provides a quick way to assess your site's accessibility—the same tool many legal professionals use to identify non-compliant websites. Taking proactive steps can protect your business while making your site more inclusive.