Help guys….Website loads @ snail's pace if at all

I’m sorry support wasn’t able to help :/

I checked your server and load is low (this is good) but even running WP-CLI (our command line WP tool) was slow, so that gives me a couple thoughts.

1) You’re on PHP 5.2. You should change to 5.3 or 5.4 as soon as possible. Go into your Panel and edit the domain. on that page you can change PHP versions.

2) You have both All-In-One SEO and WordPress SEO installed and active. You should only have one. Also you have google-sitemap-generator, and if you’re using WordPress SEO, that can make site maps too, so I would suggest removing AIOSEO and the site map generator and just using WordPress SEO.

3) You’re using an eCommerce tool on shared hosting. It’s … just not going to be great :/ Wish it was, but they use a lot of power. You really may just need a VPS to get the best performance out of that.

I also went ahead an ran an optimize on your database and bounced apache, to clear out any possibly hanging processes. That took longer than I would have expected, so I suspect that was slightly related.

That said, the error where it hangs for a long time and then gives you an ‘Internal service error’ means you’re hitting our process watcher (basically you’re using too much of the server), and that’s really telling that you need a VPS or at least something with more oomph than a shared box.

Thanks for the response Ipstenu-DH. It’s the most comprehensive I’ve seen from a DH staff lately.

The conundrum with AIOSEO is I’ve used it forever and do not want to loose the page/post optimizations I’ve religiously worked on. That said, I must say I deleted AIOSEO from the site in last month (base on a DH’s rep recommendation) and did not see a difference in performance so I re-installed it after 3 weeks.

I see a tap in the control panel that says “enable VPS” with a free weeks trial.
1) How much will VPS cost me in addition to what I pay now?
2) Will this guarantee better performance?
3) If I try it for a week and don’t see changes in performance, will getting things back to the way it is be a problem?
4) I also see MySQL VPS. Is this better than VPS in terms of performance?

hii eventsplug,
yes your side speed in google speed is just 55 you can add this code in your .htaccess file and you can try W3 total cache plugin also and if you do that place all your Javascript in footer area

## EXPIRES CACHING ##

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 weeks"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
##############################################################################

###############################################################################
##GZIP
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
# compress text, html, javascript, css, xml:
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddType x-font/otf .otf
AddType x-font/ttf .ttf
AddType x-font/eot .eot
AddType x-font/woff .woff
AddType image/x-icon .ico
AddType image/png .png

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
  <FilesMatch "\.(js|css|xml|gz)$">
    Header append Vary: Accept-Encoding
  </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript
</IfModule>

Please backup your htaccess file before editing hope it will help you

Sorry, I was off celebrating my wife’s birthday yesterday so I didn’t get anywhere near a computer!

AIOSEO is a hit-or-miss product. I personally really love Yoast’s work (his code is amazing) so I tend to recommend him because I know he’s good, and I know he’s responsive to serious issues of security or functionality. If you like AIOSEO and it works, use that instead, but the point was more not to use both ??

I see a tap in the control panel that says “enable VPS” with a free weeks trial.
1) How much will VPS cost me in addition to what I pay now?
2) Will this guarantee better performance?
3) If I try it for a week and don’t see changes in performance, will getting things back to the way it is be a problem?
4) I also see MySQL VPS. Is this better than VPS in terms of performance?

1) Depends on the size of a VPS. they can be $15 a month or $60 – depends on how much memory you end up needing.

2) No, nothing is a 100% guarantee :/ However it’s the only way to get more memory, which I feel you do need. I think it’s more likely to help than any fussing with plugins, though.

3) Nope! Not a problem at all ??

4) Generally no, you don’t need a VPS for SQL unless your issue is slow SQL which I don’t think yours is (when I went in via PHPMyAdmin, it was fast).

Thanks Ipstenu-DH,
I got the free week VPS trial service yesterday and will check in a day or 2 to see how much memory I actually need. I know of at least one page that actually came up without an error though still slow. Can you check again and give me a prognosis of how you think the site is performing now?
Thanks again.

Thanks for the code virendra930. Sorry for the late response. Please let me know how the code will help performance.
Thanks

If you go to https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=vserver.usage& you’ll see the usage charts, which shows VPS spikes for load and memory.

Go to https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=vserver.settings& and activate PHP cache (also turn off Jabber while you’re there). Then go and edit your domain and tell it to use XCache.

This will let you switch from WP Super Cache to W3 Total Cache, which ties directly into X-Cache for better dynamic caching.

You’re getting around 1000 visits an hour, by the way, which is pretty impressive that it was running as well as it did on Shared.

Thanks again Ipstenu-DH.
I did all you suggested above. As for XCache, the only related field I could find in the manage domain section was “PHP XCache Support:” This box was already checked and could not be unchecked. Is this the field you referred to when you said “Then go and edit your domain and tell it to use XCache”?

Question: I ran into DreamPress while doing all this. Will DreamPress help me in anyway? Its $20.00/month and it says “Your site runs on multiple VPS servers specifically tuned for WordPress and has multiple layers of caching.” If I can get my site to be functional on this; it seems more economical. What’s your take?

Yes, that’s what I meant when I said to use cache. it SHOULD turn itself on like that. Sometimes it doesn’t.

DreamPress… I love it. I mean, it’s my primary job here at DreamHost (I’m the mastermind for DP support). The trick to it is that it’s not great for everyone and you have to think about how dynamic a site is, and how many people are logged in.

IF you don’t have a lot of logged in users visiting the site, and IF you’re not a massive online store, and IF you don’t have forums, it works amazingly well for many people. Once you have a site that is very dynamic (like it reloads different content per page per user) it gets messy. Mind, ANY caching tool gets messy at that point, since the concept behind caching is stuff doesn’t change.

The reason I suggested a VPS first was looking at your site and your traffic, it’s one of those things that I thought “This site may actually need to be on a Dedicated Server! Let’s suggest a VPS first.” If the VPS is okay but a bit slow, then DreamPress might be exactly what you want.

One massive caveat to DreamPress? We let you install pretty much whatever theme and plugin you want. That does not mean they all work well with DreamPress and you may have to make some hard choices. We’ll help you find any conflicts between DreamPress and the themes/plugins, but you get to decide which is more important to you.

Thanks Ipstenu-DH,
I want to use DreamPress for my website and take advantage of the introductory offer. I’m glad you’re the MM for DP support because I can rely on every advice you give.
What should I do to deactivate the VPS trial I’m currently using and activate DreamPress?

Two methods, each alike in dignity ??

1) Cancel the VPS. This will send you BACK to shared. Then go to the Domains -> DreamPress tab and move the domain of your choice.

2) Skip the cancelation of VPS and just go to DreamPress

Personally I prefer #1 since that gets you to Base Zero, shared, which is always a good thing in case of a crisis!

Ipstenu-DH,
I will have to use option #2 because, according to the rep, I cannot revert to a shared server until my sites’ usage is 300MB or lower for 2 days.

Ipstenu-DH,
I’ve converted to DreamPress and so far so good. Of course I have to reconfigure my FTP settings. I noticed in the “manage user” tab for the new DP user that SFTP rather than FTP is selected. Also, the select box that says: “disallow FTP” is checked. Is this part of the DP optimization? Should I leave it as is? and use SFTP? BTW what is the difference between both?

Are there other settings I can change to optimize DP or I’m I good to go?

Sorry, I was at an archery competition this weekend (sunburnt and didn’t come in last! Not bad!) so I didn’t check in since Friday.

Also, the select box that says: “disallow FTP” is checked. Is this part of the DP optimization?

DP Security ?? You can use (and we recommend!) SFTP, but not FTP.

SFTP is FTP via Secure Shell (SSH) and is the safest file transfer we’ve got. SFTP Clients like Cyberduck are free. Transmit is pay for but I love it.