Slow response time since using Ignite

Hey Chris,

Thanks for using Ignite!

Looks like the slowness isn’t related to Ignite. I’m seeing a long wait time before WordPress gets loaded, so it’s probably an issue with your hosting.

If you’re not already, I’d recommend using W3 Total Cache to speed things up and knock out a few of the PageSpeed recommendations.

As for the render-blocking JS and CSS, this is challenging for a WordPress theme to accomplish, but I will look into it further.

For reference, here’s the PageSpeed test of the Ignite live demo on my site:

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=en_US&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.competethemes.com%2Fignite-live-demo%2F&tab=desktop

Thanks for the quick reply. It’s a puzzling thing because I have two WP sites on the same hosting account w/ 1&1, and my first site (www.bctechnet.com) loads relatively okay (not lightning, but tolerable), while this one (www.thegurleyman.com) seems to chug. And any additional plugins or ads (AdSense) sink it further.

I’m guessing that W3 Total Cache isn’t gonna be an option with shared hosting like 1&1…

Probably need to go hunting for better hosting (feel free to recommend). Thanks again.

It is puzzling, I wish there was more I could do, but frankly I’m a bit stumped too.

About the caching, take a look at this stackoverflow post about caching on shared hosting. It has some great info in it: https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/2213/what-are-the-best-practices-for-using-a-caching-plugin-on-a-shared-host

For hosting, I’ve heard great things about WP Engine, but I personally use Gandi. It’s barebones, but is affordable and fast.

Thanks, Ben. I’ll check out Gandi–those are two qualities I value ($$ & speed). Not looking forward to the migration, though. ‘Always just enough time between hosting changes to totally forget the phpMyAdmin, etc backup and restore process. Oh well… ??

Just a quick follow-up: I moved to Gandi.net last night and love it! Fast, cheap and easy. Immediate improvement on 1&1. Thanks for the referral!