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WordPress Website & Page Loading Speed SUCKS!

by ishboo
17 replies
Hi Fellow Warriors,

My name is Anthony Smith. I am an internet marketer as well as an offline marketing consultant. I am writing this post out of complete frustration - otherwise known as "extremely pissed off and ready to kill the ### damn Internet all-together" (if I could).

Here's my issue, and I really hope that you programming guys can truly help (and in simple language):

I setup a website using WordPress for a client. It's at http://www.midlandbrewing.com if you don't mind taking a look.

It takes anywhere from 30-60 seconds to load! It used to load quickly, but then it started getting traffic. But it only gets like 1000 visitors a month. Nothing too large.

It just takes forever to load. I tried WP-Minify, WP CSS plugin, WP Super Cache (and still have this running), and W3 Total Cache.

Problem is, none of these plug-ins have speed up the site AND they always screw up the whole damn design.

Here's a before and after shot:

http://www.upyourmarketing.com/images/before.png

http://www.upyourmarketing.com/images/after.png

Anyone here who can help and tell me why the plug-ins I keep trying don't work AND WHAT TO DO TO FIX THEM or what I should just DO ALL-TOGETHER would be very much appreciated.

Thank you so much to those who respond with helpful answers (praying)

If you have one then post it below...
#loading #page #speed #sucks #website #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Michael71
    Do not run WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache the same time.

    This will never work.

    You can read some of my tipps here : www.cookielessdomain.com ... I cover W3 Total Cache and everything related to "page loading speed".

    Oh btw, this is not a programming issue.
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  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    A few of things come to mind:

    1. Are you running plugins that you're not using? (I noticed in your source code that wp-e-commerce is on there but I couldn't find a shop on the site). If you're not using plugins deactivate and remove them.

    2. Still on plugins, any that have to access other sites to do their stuff would be slowing your load times down. Try deactivating all your plugins and then re-activate them one by one and check the site load time after each to see if any particular plugin is slowing down the site.

    3. Every time I loaded a page around 50% of the delay was queuing for the server. If you're on shared hosting you may want to try VPS because your hosting provider is putting too many sites on the shared hosting servers.

    4. If you're hosting with GoDaddy, move to a host that understands WordPress (Hostgator, Bluehost)

    5. Your images are taking a long time to load - this could be because of the server problems I mentioned or because they're not optimised.

    6. If you're running W3-Total-Cache, and your hosting provider is Hostgator or Bluehost, ask for their recommended settings. All servers are configured differently and a good WordPress hosting provider will be able to give you their recommended W3TC settings based on their server configuration.

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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    • Profile picture of the author ishboo
      Originally Posted by Michael71 View Post

      Do not run WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache the same time.

      This will never work.

      You can read some of my tipps here : www.cookielessdomain.com ... I cover W3 Total Cache and everything related to "page loading speed".

      Oh btw, this is not a programming issue.
      Thank you so much Michael! I really appreciate your blog as a resource. I checked it out. Looks like some of that stuff will really work. Sorry for posting in Programming section, not quite sure where else on the forum this would fall under? It's funny, after all this time marketing online I still hate this techie stuff

      Thanks for the tip!

      Originally Posted by Abledragon View Post

      A few of things come to mind:

      1. Are you running plugins that you're not using? (I noticed in your source code that wp-e-commerce is on there but I couldn't find a shop on the site). If you're not using plugins deactivate and remove them.

      2. Still on plugins, any that have to access other sites to do their stuff would be slowing your load times down. Try deactivating all your plugins and then re-activate them one by one and check the site load time after each to see if any particular plugin is slowing down the site.

      3. Every time I loaded a page around 50% of the delay was queuing for the server. If you're on shared hosting you may want to try VPS because your hosting provider is putting too many sites on the shared hosting servers.

      4. If you're hosting with GoDaddy, move to a host that understands WordPress (Hostgator, Bluehost)

      5. Your images are taking a long time to load - this could be because of the server problems I mentioned or because they're not optimised.

      6. If you're running W3-Total-Cache, and your hosting provider is Hostgator or Bluehost, ask for their recommended settings. All servers are configured differently and a good WordPress hosting provider will be able to give you their recommended W3TC settings based on their server configuration.

      Cheers,

      Martin.
      Hey Martin,

      Thank you so much for the info. Actually, WPEcommerce is going to be running soon with an online store for the site, I just have the pages hidden from public view right now so we can get the last minute touches going. Plus, I kept it activated cuz I want to know the real load time with it installed and running since it will be anyway.

      I especially appreciate tips # 3, 5, and 6. I optimized the images by shrinking it as much as possible on my end without losing quality and then used Smu****.com. So your input tells me this is a server issue.

      I'll be calling BlueHost to ask what their recommended settings are as well. Do you think using a CDN will be effective since the images are loading so slowly? Maybe that will keep me from getting VPS?

      Thank you once again Martin.

      Your knowledge has really helped a fellow a Warrior
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  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    A CDN may be effective, but I've heard both good and bad reports from CDN users.

    I've not used one myself, so I can't comment directly. But it would definitely be worth doing some research into peoples' experience with CDNs before making that move.

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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    WealthyDragon - Earning My Living Online
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael71
    Well since I run my sites on my own dedicated servers I do not have to ask any hoster about settings

    Where is bluehost located?
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    HTML/CSS/jQuery/ZURB Foundation/Twitter Bootstrap/Wordpress/Frontend Performance Optimizing
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  • Profile picture of the author LorrieJean
    One Tip: Exipry headers helped my sites load and speed time not a bunch but every little bit helps~ Here's some info on how to do it. Also check your sever logs and see what kind of errors your getting if any Here's Yahoo's documentation on how to seit it up. Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    The total size of the page is 2.36 MEGABYTES!!! requiring 212 HTTP requests, and 75 database queries.

    You expect that to be FAST? You can minify and cache until you're blue in the face, install every plugin known to the WordPress world, but you'll never get this site to load quickly unless it's revamped completely.

    Sorry to be cruel, but the simple language solution is to hire someone who knows how to develop web sites. It's not just a matter of slapping WordPress on a server and throwing in themes and plugins...

    The site is loading two versions of jquery. It's loading, through the stylesheets, over a hundred different spacers, bullets, buttons and other crap that could either be combined into one or two sprite images, or dispensed with altogether. Images should only be loaded when needed. Split the stylesheets up so that unnecessary images aren't loaded.

    Only load javascript that is needed. The total size of the javascript alone is 935K!!! That's totally ridiculous.

    The WPe-commerce plugin is one of the worst for loading unnecessary scripts. Modify the plugin to only load when needed, or hire someone to do it for you.

    Splitting some of the assets off to a CDN might help to a degree, but not enough to save this one.

    You need to cut the HTTP requests by two-thirds MINIMUM, get your database queries down to a reasonable number ( 20 max ), optimize the CSS images by combining them into sprite images where possible, only load javascript where it's needed.

    When you get that done, you'll be on track to having a site that loads in a reasonable amount of time.
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  • Profile picture of the author WPBounce
    I guess you fixed it because it loads fine for me now.
    I was going to recommend using a VPS or dedicated host and check for any hacking activities.
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    • Profile picture of the author cartman
      1. GTMetrix.com report tells me that your page size is 3.17MB, that is way too high, reduce the image sizes.
      2. Dont know what host you are on (maybe i missed that part), but i was on Godaddy shared and nomatter what i installed, W3 total cache, WP Super cache, wp minify - the fresh wp install was just too slow. I moved the site to hostgator and it works perfect. So i strongly recommend moving to either hostgator or bluehost.

      Hope this helps.
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      • Profile picture of the author Don Art
        seems to load ok now.

        For future reference, I thought I'd still post a simple tip for figuring out wp bottlenecks. BTW - This is worth doing before adding a cache plugin.

        1. Switch your theme back to 2011 theme
        2. uninstall every last plugin
        3. load the site in the aforementioned gtmetrix.com - if all is good your host is not the issue
        4. reinstall your theme and reload site in gtmetrix.com - it should not have dropped more than a few pct. If it did the theme needs work.
        5. repeat reload procedure - one plugin at a time - and I do mean 1 plugin at a time
        6. if you have not found you issue yet try installing various pairs of plugins - this is really tedious but you may have plugins that are conflicting
        cache plugins are great but they should be used to speed up a well-functioning site. Don't expect caching to fix bad code.
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  • Profile picture of the author jeja7676
    W3 Total Cache works absolutely great for me. It bothers some other plugins which I had to turn off (comments and ratings I think) but it delivers static and zipped html to the client (browser) app. It really speeds up my site.
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  • Profile picture of the author SheridanMelrose
    You could try looking into some web acceleration services
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  • Profile picture of the author omarusman
    Try using cloudflare.com. I'm using it specially on my shared hosted blogs. It makes my sites a little bit snappy.
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    • Profile picture of the author masterxm
      Originally Posted by omarusman View Post

      Try using cloudflare.com. I'm using it specially on my shared hosted blogs. It makes my sites a little bit snappy.

      thats nice thank you very cool
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    • Profile picture of the author jankph
      Originally Posted by omarusman View Post

      Try using cloudflare.com. I'm using it specially on my shared hosted blogs. It makes my sites a little bit snappy.
      Another similar service is incapsula.com. While CloudFlare appears to have more performance options that you can play around with, IMO Incapsula offers better security.
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  • Profile picture of the author mortenmatras
    Best start is always to hire a programmer... Odesk.com or similar.
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  • Profile picture of the author shantanu
    Website is opening successfully in my browser and yes before starting or developing a website for any client u must take an advice from a programmer or a web developer. Else site's fuctionality is totally fine but try to use good quality images (HD) it completely changes the look of site and brings fresh look to it.
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