Forum Moderators: phranque
Thank you,
Are you on a shared hosting plan?
It may be that the hosting plan you are on does not have enough umph for your site, and you see it slow down during times of greater traffic. Or it could be that the server that hosts your site has another busy site that's impacting the performance of the server - it could be a combination of both.
Does your site use a database?
If so, depending on the set-up of your host you may have limits on the number of queries allowed or the database process might be limited.
Either or both of these would slow a site down during times of traffic and not be anything code related.
LisaB
"Are you on a shared hosting plan?"
I don't have my own server, so I guess that means I'm on a shared plan. The hosting company has suggested the problem could be related to increased traffic at times.
"Does your site use a database?
If so, depending on the set-up of your host you may have limits on the number of queries allowed or the database process might be limited.
Either or both of these would slow a site down during times of traffic and not be anything code related."
Yes, my site uses a database. Is there anything I can do with my host server to improve the performance? Should I consider having my own server?
Thanks, LisaB
I am not saying it is the host's fault but hosts always say it's yours so take their advice with a grain of salt ;)
It could be
- html pages that are heavy
- too many or too large graphics
- bad coding
- cart problems (assuming you have a cart)
- slow servers - host issues
- could be someone else on your shared box that is sucking up a lot of bandwidth
- are you the only one seeing this? maybe you have a funky router between you and your site
increases in traffic tend to highlight problems, as opposed ot make them
I would look at your traffic to see if there has been an increase, if there hasn't then maybe something has stopped working correctly
jumping into your own server doesn't make the problem go away, it just puts it off. Better to isolate the issue first.
is there a particular part of your site that is slow or is it a site wide issue?
Betty
I've worked on a site where another designer had placed the sitemeter stats javascript in a location that caused the page to hang til it loaded, it would render only the part of the page up to that point (think header and nothing else). We moved it to the bottom of the page at the very last bit of code, that let the page render and visitors didn't leave waiting on the stats counter to load.
LisaB
My host says no one else is having the problem whenever I send a trouble ticket.
That's Customer Support 101. They teach them to say that on Day One.
Don't take their word for it. Try to contact the webmasters of other sites on your host.
Use <snip>a reverse DNS</snip> tool to figure it out.
You'll probably freak when you find out how many people live in your tenement.
If any of them are pr0n or gambling sites, then you live in a bad neighborhood, and you may want to consider asking your host to move you.
Also, I find that most of my slowdowns actually tend to be DNS-related. Bad load balancers, filters, even your local lookups can have HUGE effects on connection speed.
[edited by: trillianjedi at 11:22 pm (utc) on Mar. 16, 2007]
[edit reason] Let's not have specifics in here please.. there's lots of tools ;) [/edit]
Thanks,
Eric
My site does have a lot of graphics.
cmarshall, I used the tool and found only my site listed. How is that possible?
justablink, the graphics are not thumbnails and I do not know if they are optimized.
Lisa, I have google analytics script at the bottom of the pages.
Betty
well i don't know how that tool works [i never use online tools like that just incase they are collecting data] but from what i can see it returns the number of domains related to an ip address ...
... this is not a test of how many sites use the same server as you.
many hosts will give a customer a unique ip address ... yet they are still on shared servers.
[also theoretically the same ip address can be shared over many servers]
Thanks,
I am more interested in the code on your site. Of course your web designer says the code is fine, he/she wrote it. Are you using an off-the-shelf cart or is it something your site developer wrote? Inefficient code can really bog your site down.
Also, optimizing the site graphics would be of great benefit.
</dan>
ddregallo, my shopping cart was developed for my site.
Because the web designer says the code is fine, and the web hosts say their end is fine, I'm at both of their mercy! That's why I hoped someone here would look at the code and tell me if they see any obvious problems.
If anyone wants to PM me, I will give the site to look at.
Thanks,
My host says no one else is having the problem whenever I send a trouble ticket.
You may be the only one that's noticing and cares enough to submit a ticket.
This could also explain why it loads slowly one minute and faster the next - your browser is caching the graphics and not reloading them the second time.
Clear your browser cache, go to a slow page on your site, right click any logos or photos, click on properties and tell us what size the files are.
We can then offer suggestions as to how to improve them.
Always better to get the cart to link to external images.
Here are some graphic file sizes:
lg graphic-37327 bytes
sm graphic-10974 bytes
sm graphic x 3-4371 bytes ea
sm graphic-1750 bytes
sm graphic-8402 bytes
Thanks,
Betty
I was speaking to someone today across the country from me and my site wouldn't load for him.
This eliminates the possibility it's your Internet connection.
Here's an easy way to test: prepare a simple text-only web page and upload it to your server. No Javascript, no graphics, text only. Next time the site bogs down, call that page immediately. If the text-only page is slow, your host has oversold their bandwidth or your site is too demanding for the hosting package.
If you wish to be serious about ecommerce, you need to move to at least a virtual dedicated server if not a full one. A VPS or VDS is very inexpensive by comparison. I know - a few months ago I said I couldn't afford it either. When there's a will there's a way. :-)
I've seen some dedicated servers for as low as $70/month. If you could afford it, and your site is making good money, I would consider it.
Particularly if you live off your web business... have more control over your server is important to provide the level of service your customers expect...
[edited by: encyclo at 3:21 pm (utc) on Mar. 21, 2007]
[edit reason] no URLs please, see TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]
The utility of this is to see if others are complaining.
Being constant at checking your service status will give you enough feedback to know if somebody on the box is sucking resources. It might be you.
- Always try to keep your pages simple and small
- Bandwidth friendly
- clean design
AND
Research about the tools you are using. Lots of them are publicly "GREAT" but when you search for their dark side you see lots of image serving scripts overloading the serve (it might be your case now you mention images).
Some of this have ways of increasing their performance, some don't and some, even working on it just suck....
Are you using an Access database? If so, this could be a problem.
I would start there.
My traffic is around 60 a day
As in, 60 unique visitors per day? A dedicated host for that amount of traffic would be massive overkill. I have sites that get thousands of uniques per day on shared servers with no problem--dynamic pages, DB calls and all. I did crash a shared server once when my site started getting five figure traffic in one day, although that was years ago.
No no no, you do not need a dedicated server. That isn't the problem here.
As in, 60 unique visitors per day? A dedicated host for that amount of traffic would be massive overkill. I have sites that get thousands of uniques per day on shared servers with no problem--dynamic pages, DB calls and all. I did crash a shared server once when my site started getting five figure traffic in one day, although that was years ago.No no no, you do not need a dedicated server. That isn't the problem here.
Her traffic is not the problem here... it is what is going on with the other 50 sites on her shared host. Something she has no control over.
I still think it is worth considering if she makes enough bank from the site, and particularly if she lives off the income from the site. Those 60 visitors could be buying $500 dollar products, hence making the expense of a cheap dedicated (or virtual dedicated) server a non-issue.
Peace of mind and control of your server environment to provide the highest level of service is what is important. Who knows, maybe she is paying $30 a month right now for shared hosting. She could easily find a virtual dedicated for that price or slightly higher.
At the volume you're talking it's one of two things:
Pages are not optimized correctly - this could be either page size or a database problem.
Hosting
Based on the numbers you showed earlier, it's doubtful that your site is the problem. If your host offers CPanel, you can check if the server is having a problem by looking at the Server Stats section. That will tell you if the CPU load is heavy.
Their are many options some of the seasoned webmasters have. For example, you can set up a test environment at home on a Windows maching running XAMPP or WAMP (assuming you're using php and mysql on Apache). The least expensive option you have is to switch hosts or set up a test environment on a new host and see how that works for you.
I was as well was on a server with multiple sites and the server just would not support the load of request Site was asp I think what was happening I was getting to many request at one time locking up the db and I feel this is his issue to as 60 per day is a small number but if he is getting hit with bots etc all at the same time this will kill the site due to the number of request.
I went htm all pages and access db for search only so if the site gets hit hard on search it has no effect on cart or page loads.
he can go here and I am sure this is an ok url to post to test his load speed
[websiteoptimization.com...]
