My wordpress is so slow!

Take a look at this link on Pingdom Tools. It’s the page load test for https://lelectronlibre.net/ (that is the blog in question, right?) I got 3.8 seconds which is certainly acceptable.

See the top line? That’s the initial load of your page and it’s takes the longest to load out of the elements. Try adding a PHP op cache like Xcache or eAccelerator. Also consider installing WP-SuperCache. When it serves static HTML pages, it’s hard to get faster than that.

And if it’s not that URL, well try that tool with the actual blog URL…

Good luck.

Thank you very much for your reply. I really don’t understand why every test I do says my site is not that bad, but it gets ugly very often… Does it mean that the problem could simply be my host? I am with dot5hosting… Never had any problem with them, but maybe they are too slow?

I installed wp-cache on my old blog, but there was some problem with running “recent comments”. Also, I wonder: is it really useful considering I rarely have over 500 visitors a day?

Concerning Xcace or eAccelerator, does it really make the site faster? Are they easy to install and is there any problem with those?

Thanks!

Just for fun, I redid the test, and at some point the URL took 4.8 seconds to launch, then everything else an astonishing 0.8 seconds… Maybe the problem is my host?!

EDIT: Just for fun: https://lelectronlibre.net/speed.jpg

And my host saying that everything is normal… ??

I really don’t understand why every test I do says my site is not that bad, but it gets ugly very often…

It might be your host, or it might be that you are getting hit with a lot of requests some of the time. When it’s slow, see if you can correlate that with stats from WordPress stats or Google Analytics.

Concerning Xcace or eAccelerator, does it really make the site faster? Are they easy to install and is there any problem with those?

It does improve PHP performance. I don’t have the stats, but I do notice a difference with it installed and being used versus not having it.

What is your environment? For most Linux distributions, it’s very easy to add via package management. Adding it is usually a quick win performace wise.

I don’t think it has something to do with lot of request; my blog isn’t that popular (500 visitors is a good day and at this hour most of my visitors are at bed). I do a lot of testing with the speed of my blog, and the main problem is that it is inconsistent: I can get 3-4 <2sec. results followed by a 7sec. and a 18sec! But do you think the person who want to get to my blog by google will wait 18sec.? No way!

I think I am on Linux. I have a normal hosting plan (no VPS). I will check documentation tomorrow to see if I can make it work.

As for Super-Cache, do you think it is worth it for <500 visitors a day and considering I have a recent comment plugin (possible “stand still” problem…)

Thanks!

I would deactivate all plugins and test speed
reactivate one by one and test
some plugins will slow your site considerably

@samboll: I did it and still slow… And whatever plugins I have or not, if it takes 24 seconds to simply get to my URL, what is left to gain?

Or maybe I am wrong? On https://tools.pingdom.com/ I have no control on the first bar, right? This is simply my host speed?

Or maybe I am wrong? On https://tools.pingdom.com/ I have no control on the first bar, right? This is simply my host speed?

Well, sort of. That first line is how long your server takes to generate and transmit that initial page. All the other elements are referenced in that first page.

You probably can’t do anything about how long it takes to transmit the page via the wire. You might be able to speed up how long it takes PHP to generate that output, which is why I suggested an op cache.

The op cache will (I’m going to get this technically wrong…) keep the previously interpreted page in the op cache so PHP will reused the already processed copy for execution.

Another thing you may want to try is setting your mysql database to more optimal settings.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wordpress+mysql+optimization&btnG=Google+Search&aq=0&oq=wordpress+mysql+op

Ok I think I understand. I will surely look for optimization, but since for every test it takes only about 1-3 seconds for everything to load except for loading the first bar, what option do I have left for the main problem?

In other words: working on optimization and PHP acceleration could help for the 5% of the speed problem, but what about the other 95%. Is there any other option beside switching host?

I did numerous test, and for the last 10 the results are disappointing: 5 out of 10 took more than 8 seconds (3 more than 10 and 1 over 20) but I also have 2 results UNDER 2 seconds. It seems the results are inconsistant. Could it mean that my host has too many users on the same server, hence the fact that sometimes it is fast sometimes it is not?