Website not loading fast enough...using Wordpress

http://talkbinary.com isn't loading fast enough. Any opinions or suggestions on why this is occurring?

I'm using WP-Super-Cache.

I have roughly ~25 plugins running currently. Is that a problem?

Many of the plugins don't load with the front page though.

This is a theme I bought.

Thank you.

 

Get different hosting...suggestion: theprimehost.com

 

Will different hosting really make a difference?

 

might try a wordpress cache plugin, reduce some plugins and make sure your sidebars have minimal javascript code ( affiliates and advertising code)

 

I'm using Super-Cache but I've been hearing Go Daddy isn't great so I'm wondering if changing hosting provider would make a difference?

Also, how easy would it be to take one Wordpress database, and putting it in another?

 

Don't jump the gun on changing hosts. No matter what anyone suggests. I think that is just a blatantly lazy statement to say in the first place.

Running a speed test your homepage, it clocks in at almost 15 seconds for a T1 1.44Mbit internet connection. The page size is fairly large at 347K, but it is your total Http requests for the page that is really dragging the rendering of the page down.

The most vile Http request offenders are the amount of javascript files you are calling. A total of 141K spread out over 18 files. You seriously need to cutback on that stuff and get rid of everything you do not need.

A majority of your javascript files are from external sources. So you see, changing hosts for your content will not alleviate their slower/faster servers.

Yes, you are probably plugin heavy. I notice that you have 3 or 4 stat tracking scripts running. I mean, how many do you really need? Dump all but the one you need ... better yet dump them all and use Google Analytics.

You also have 3 ad server scripts running ... these are all external too and could be a large part of the slow down right there.

I noticed that external links in your posts are nofollow, while the internal links are dofollow. Is that a plugin? I think it is and it is converting links on the fly to nofollow -- this requires processing power. As you mentioned Super-Cache, there could be some other issues there as well.

If you are using that plugin, I suggest disabling or uninstalling it. Probably disable super-cache too and see if things speed up.

Your image files are right up there, but easier problem to fix.

You have one image that you should host yourself, the Feedburner feed icon. Upload to your server and change the SRC attribute of the image accordingly. Never rely on other servers for your images if you can help it.

You have three references to images in your CSS stylesheet that are not valid. Either delete these references in your Theme templates or upload them:

http://talkbinary.com/wp-content/themes/pngbehavior.htc
http://talkbinary.com/wp-content/themes/ContentPress/ContentPress/i/toparticle_bg.jp
http://talkbinary.com/wp-content/themes/ContentPress/ContentPress/i/mainbg.jp

Dump the external image from Social Spark.

Dump the external image and service for statcounter.com

Umm ... that is about all for now. Give some of this your best shot and then lets see what happens.

 

Thanks for the awesome response. I'll be looking towards this tomorrow. Where did you gather the loading times? I've seen websites that analyze speed loading times.

Since I didn't create this theme, I wanted to know first what could be wrong before I started working on it.

 

Nice one Dodger, all i'll add is: use YSlow and follow as many of the recommendations as you can (you can ignore the stuff about using a CDN though).

Your YSlow mark is 26/100. Not good.

 

The load times are calculated estimates. I got them from http://www.websiteoptimization.com

As for the theme, and others like them, they are overloaded with tons of bells and whistles, widgets or whatever they call them now. A lot of the gizmos are practically useless and for the reader, an eyesore (just like Flash which one of these days will probably cause me to go into seizures).

This theme in particular is all about the ads and tracking, of which, are all controlled by sources outside of your server. So who is controlling your blog now?

Well here you are with all the ads running, but nobody to look at them yet. Kind of the horse before the cart. And regardless of what John Chow says about how much money you can make running this, and running that, realistically I would not quit your day job just yet.

Best to generate your readership first, then sell adspace on your terms and pocket all of the money yourself --rather than eking a few cents on the dollar from the other guys.

 

I thought my site wasn't advertising heavy...maybe the performancing ads plus the entre card thing make it seem so...I've been focusing more on the content than actual making money.

I'm going to be cutting back on several things.

What do you think is a necessity and what isn't?

I think I'll probably even be cutting back on those Community widgets etc...

Thanks for the help. I reduced loading from 14secs to 11secs on that 1tb speed (if it was that).

 

I don't know about yslow. Have to load firebug first, and my browser is slow enough as it is.

The recommendations there are sound. I forgot about pre-loading and post-loading. Pre-loading your CSS images is neat visual trick to make it appear that your page is loading snippety quick! Sometimes that header graphic will ruin that effect though.

 

I increased my YSlow rank to 31...so so far, things are improving.

Also what is a better search engine?

The one wordpress comes with would give me irrelevant searches.

Lijit would do better.

Should I ditch lijit?

 

Not for me to say what to cut.

The community widgets are part of a social network, that I would keep. It is almost like advertisement for you and a way for people to find you. I would use whatever their bare minimum will allow.

For instance, for BlogCatalog I only put some Meta information in the Head section while having a nofollow image link in the body (of course the image is on my server)

The entre card maybe. But I was never really sold on that in the first place, so I am a little biased.

What you could do is comment each area out. Try your page. Should be quicker, then uncomment one to see how it performs -- recomment and repeat for another. Just play around with them and take notice.

You may be right about Performancing ads, but the others are known to bog down too. I would probably just go with only one service ... after a few months, if it is not giving you enough to pay the hosting bill -- dump em and try another.

 

I'm removing some javascript, and using that web page analyzer. I'll probably reduce the size of mybloglog to a smaller size.

I removed more plugins that did minor things but nothing too great.

So far I have one advertising deal that is paying for my hosting bill as long as they choose to stay with me.

Entrecard has helped me find some bloggers in my niche so far, so for now I'll keep it. I plan on ditching it later.

 

One thing. The Sociable plugin. You may want to not show that on the Home page. Leave it for you individual post pages though -- that is where you need it anyway.

This will reduce the image count for the Home. A little here, a little there goes a long way.

Not sure if that is something you can configure in the settings, or if you have to edit your index template.

Personally, I prefer BookmarkThis (one button, many socialable bookmarking options)

 

I removed Sociable and replaced it with Share This what I currently have. I'll look into Bookmark this later on.

So far I see an improvement...thank you for helping me out.

Yslow rating increased to 40.

Can anyone tell me if the site loading improved?

I've noticed quite an improvement...

 

Loads much faster! Great job.

I don't know if this something that was there before we started, but you have an errant List Item somewhere in the sidebar. Notice how the poll and recent comments sections are not in line with the rest of the column?

It is probably something like an unclosed UL or maybe an extra starting UL. My eyes are not quite open right now, and those nested lists are not too easy to check from the Html source. Should be easier for you to spot in your template however.

 

i think its bit slow though unnoticeable. It believe its because of the theme.

 

You think?

 

I think I know how I can slow it down even further. I just have to edit more things.

Either way I increased the loading time significantly. I believe it took like 3x more before to load.

Maybe I was losing a lot of visitors that way. =/

Hopefully things change!