Slow WordPress Blog Speedup Tips
The Unofficial AdSense Blog was a prime example of a slow WordPress blog, and it got to the point where I needed to fix things. So here are some things you can try to make your WordPress blog faster:
- Reduce the number of posts on the home page — I was showing the last 20 posts on the home page, so I’ve cut that down to just a few. (This will help with the home page, but not the site in general.)
- Add a caching plugin — Try installing WP Super Cache or some equivalent.
- Clean up the database — There is a MySQL database associated with your blog and it gets filled with unnecessary stuff as your blog grows. Install the WP-DBManager plugin and use it to optimize your WordPress database.
- Disable unnecessary plugins — I had some old plugins that I wasn’t using. Disable them. In fact, if you’re truly done with them, delete them entirely from your wp-content/plugins folder.
- Switch to a faster theme — Not all themes are equal when it comes to load times. Experiment with a few different themes to see if you can find one that works better for your site.
- Remove unncessary JavaScript — Is your blog full of JavaScript from various bookmarking sites and so on? Get rid of as much of it as you can.
- Upgrade your WordPress — Upgrade to the latest version of WordPress to take advantage of any speedups that have made it into the platform.
- Increase the PHP memory limit — Try adding more memory to PHP by setting the memory_limit property in your php.ini file to a larger value. If you don’t have a php.ini file, ask your hosting service to create one for you first, then modify it.
- Increase the database timeout — If you’re seeing a lot of “500 Internal Server Error” messages with your WordPress blog, especially when you’re accessing the administration pages, your database connection may be timing out prematurely. You’ll see this on shared hosting services a lot of times. I found a great post on robsnotebooks.com that shows how to do this and even provides a way for WP to automatically reconnect to the database if the connection is dropped. I had to modify the wp-db.php file for use with WordPress 2.9, though, so if you want a copy just drop me a line.
If none of the above tips work for you, it might be time to switch hosting services, or move away from shared hosting to a more dedicated solution. But that’s a whole different enchilada!
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January 18, 2010 | Filed Under AdSense
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18 Responses to “Slow WordPress Blog Speedup Tips”
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Interesting!
Can i suggest a tips?
I suggest to use a component for add gzip compression on wordpress file.
I don’t remember the name of the component but if you search it in Google you can find it and make the blog 50% faster!
Thanks for this post, especially the tip about the 500 Internal Server errors.
Ok thank you for tips. But I wonder to set how many post on home page. Would you like to tell me, how many post, please?
I currently set 6 post on my homepage. is it too many?
Wow thanks for the tips.
I’ve been using WP Super Cache already for a while now.
The first time I installed it and turned it on I totally forgot about it. After a while I was making changes on my wordpress site and I noticed that I couldn’t change anything. I’ve spend hours trying to figure out what wrong. Then I finally found out that I had to turn WP Super Cache off and on.
Just a tip so other readers will know this.
I feel so dumb hahaha.
Thanks again for the tips!
I switched from WP SuperCache to W3 Total Cache last week and though the plug-in is somewhat of complicated, the speed boost is quite evident.
For some reason adsense scripts tend to slow things down on some blogs cos they have to load before the actual content below them does.
Hopefully they will create a better adsense code that loads as fast as the new Google analytics asynchronous code.
I agree especially on the first point: to reduce the post on the home is a gesture that not only speeds up the system, but also more oridnata the page!
Thanks for this… I didn’t know you could do the last one… i’ll have to try it out.
Also with wordpress you can also use WEBO SiteSpeed up plugin. It has a cache, minify and alot of other wordpress speedup plugins. It is kinda rough to get started with it (at least I had some problems), but i’ve tried it on 3 other sites and it worked flawlessly. So first time using it may be a pain. It also comes with a branding tag, but can be removed through the coding.
Also Google has a nice little plugin that works well with firebug called Google Page Speed, helps you analyze your page’s speed performance. I use it along with Firebug’s Net Tool.
Removing the unnecessary plugins was the biggest help to my blog. I realized that I had 5 plugins that were running, adding an additional 1.5 seconds to load time! Thanks for the tips.
Great tips, thanks. I’d been showing excerpts for my recent posts to cut down on load time (and page bloat) but might cut back further to just post titles – even as a recent posts widget maybe. I agree with your plugins comment – I religiously delete stuff I don’t need.
Interesting!
Can i suggest a tips?
I suggest to use a component for add gzip compression on wordpress file.
I don’t remember the name of the component but if you search it in Google you can find it and make the blog 50% faster!
If your hosting will allow it, installing a PHP cache such as APC is a massive performance win.
I found the best way to track down the speed (to date) was to start an account with google webmaster tools… I had some redirect issues that I had not uncovered…the interface made diagnosis pretty straight forward.
Thanks for the article!
I had supercache installed but when making changes its a little annoying
I’ve used all those tips and now my page gets an A with Yslow for the blog setting! I’m pumped about that
Gzip compression is also very helpful for speeding up page load time.
cheers for that. I am going to try Gzip compression thanks Thomas.
Thanks for the post. I have never heard of WP-DBManager. i will have to give it a try.
I do know the default WP-Cache plug-in is not as good as it should be.
I have switched to the HyperCache Wordpress caching plugin, and I have found it to be more efficient then WP-super Cache on my blog. I am sure mileage may vary however.
thanks for the tips.
Hi, great article & much needed with Googles recent focus on page loading times.
One thing I discovered a few weeks ago when struggling to reduce my page load times, was the fact that many of these recent visitor widgets from the likes of MyBlogLog,BlogCatalog & FaceBook are real killers when it comes to slowing down your site.
Funnily enough one of the worst culprits I found was actually the 300 x 250 ad-block from adsense which I had in my sidebar ! This has now been removed from my side bar and now only displays at the top left of a post / article. I find it amusing that Google should be so critical when they are actually contributing to the problem.
Keep Up The great work
Steve
I’ll add 2 more tips:
- a lighter sitemap, there is no need to take like 20 seconds for building process
- don’t need to ping 100 services, Google and Pingomatic are more than enough
And W3 Total Cache is smoother than WP Super Cache