How to find Optimized Routes:
Most players rate Routes based on how many arrow presses. So killing an enemy and moving count as 1 arrow press.
Double Ghost+Key add an additional arrow press to glitch the game.
Try to find an Optimized route by doing less arrow presses than the previous Optimized route.
Some other ways to find Optimized Routes:
Killing an enemy and trying to move on its previous space wastes some time, there is a way to move another way around it which is kind of like a glitch but saves time.
The only current example of getting a wait from entering the stairway from a side is in level 1 where entering from the bottom gives about a 1/10 of the second wait on the second level (There may be more of these, try to find them).
Moving around a key can activate a glitch where you pick up the key because the sprite of Pumpking grows larger just enough to touch the key, this probably works on Levels like level 24 but just haven't been discovered yet to save time. The only Optimized route currently with this is Level 12.
Killing Enemies simultaneously is faster than killing an enemy then moving a space and killing another enemy, the only exception is on level 21.
Moving sideways in quick succession is quicker than moving up and down quickly.
Having a flow and not having to stop to stop to wait for a spike in a level (or any enemy thing) is faster. Like in level 9 where you do the back and forth thing at the start for the Optimized route.
That is basically it. Also finding new glitches, even if rare and hard to do; could save milliseconds which is why finding these routes are so important.
Some levels are straightforward and don't have Optimized routes, for example Level 1 used to be like that until we found about the stairway wait to level 2. One of the most important Levels to be Optimized is Level 24, which currently has been Optimized 6 times, latest by me with 61 Arrow Presses :D
Good Luck and Have Fun!
Level 14 2nd Optimization (Uses the same amount of arrow presses as the 1st Optimization) It flows better, uses sideways arrows in quick succession, kills enemies in quick succession; making it technically faster with 99.99% proven methods.