I've got 10 Amazon items (Adult ADHD related gadgets & books) on my left hand side bar of my WordPress blog http://adultaddstrengths.com and I'm finding that they're loading very slowly, slowing my whole blog down it seems to be even reducing my traffic, and affecting how long they stay on my site, since once you're on the site it's still very slowing going from page to page. I've reduced the size of the images to small, and have 2 or 3 lines of text and the image. I'm using the Amazon Showcase plugin http://www.aaronforgue.com/projects/amazon-showcase I know adding any images will slow things down but I'd like to slow it down the least amount possible, right now it's painfully slow. Any ideas on how to speed up the loading time of the Amazon items? Would it load faster if I hand coded amazon products links with image and text from the Amazon Associates page? (I tried it but it didn't work in WordPress) Would it load faster if I hand coded amazon products links with image and text AND had the images stored on my server? Is there another faster loading Amazon WordPress widget out there? Would adding a WordPress cache plugin help and if so which one would you recommend? thanks Pete
Hi Pete, I've just visited your blog and there was no problem with the load times of any of the images and I did not feel that the amazon feed hindered my ability to read or navigate through any part of the blog. There could be a couple of factors that might affect the speed a page/site loads. The presence of multiple images on the blog other than the amazon pics. Do you have a dialup connection yourself or are you on broadband? On my oldish PC, which has a broadband connection, I did not encounter any problems. If you or your visitors use a dialup connection, the load times would be a lot slower. I can't really think of any other reason why the images are taking a long time to load. I know this is not a solution, but at least you know that it is not slow for everyone. Best wishes Bob (book-trawlerman)
Hi Bob, I loaded your home page in 4 seconds which is quick and mine loads in 11-15 seconds which I'd consider slow, I'm on a cable modem. So I'm glad it's not slow for you but it's slow for me and several other people I've emailed to test the speed. I've also done several webspeed tests for example http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ and others and they all said it was slow in fact one http://www.vertain.com/m.q?req=cstr&reqid=d9@4Aom9 said "The test timed out, as the page did not complete loading in 13 sec. You should definitely be concerned about your server's speed." currently i have no images on my blog other than the amazon one, I don't even have a header image.
Hi Pete, The only other thing I can think of is the server your blog is hosted on. Are you using a free service or do you pay for hosting? Best wishes Bob
no godaddy, a host i'd reccommend not to use but i'm stuck on it for various reasons. It is the amazon images or the Amazon Showcase wordpress plugin. I deleted 5 of the 10 amazon items in my sidebar and my load time went from 16 seconds to 6.5 seconds. So again my original question, any ideas on how to speed up the loading time of the Amazon items? It maybe the plugin, i've tried to paste the amazon associates code directly into my sidebar but it doesn't show up on the blog when I do.
Hi Pete, If the showcase is a plugin for wordpress then there is probably very little you can do about it. I'm guessing that you might have a slow server. I've never used GoDaddy, so I can't say for certain that it's down to them. Might just be a slow loading plugin in general. Sorry I can't be more help. Best wishes Bob
I gave up on the amazon wordpress plugin, was just too slow. fixed it using hand coding urls, problem was i initially coded relative urls ie <img src="/wp-content/amazon/book/adhd-and-the-criminal-justice-system-spinning-out-of-control-small.jpg" which was fine on main page but hosed on category or individual ones tried doing absolute urls <img src="http://adultaddstrengths.com/wp-content/amazon/book/adhd-and-the-criminal-justice-system-spinning-out-of-control-small.jpg" and it worked fine. If anyone is hand coding amazon urls into a wordpress text widget for a sidebar, this code and loading up the images under your wp-content folder in an amazon folder works. It also loads infinitely faster than the amazon showcase plugin. replace the httpwwwadulta-20 with your amazon code '<ul> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/1594578605/httpwwwadulta-20" >ADHD & The Criminal Justice System, Spinning Out of Control</a><br/><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/1594578605/httpwwwadulta-20" ><img src="http://adultaddstrengths.com/wp-content/amazon/book/adhd-and-the-criminal-justice-system-spinning-out-of-control-small.jpg" width="53" height="75" style="margin-top:4px;border:0px;" alt="ADHD & The Criminal Justice System, Spinning Out of Control"/></a><p></p></li> </ul>'
Hi Pete, That's great news and I'm really glad you found the solution. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful at the time. Best wishes Bob