Does Addthis button slow down perfomance of a website

Hi everyone,
first of all I would like to appologize if this is not the right forum and ask the mod to move in the right section. But since I get my information from Google Webmastertools I thought i ask here.

For the past almost 2 weeks Webmastertools show the performance of my site has decreased, means the loading time of pages got longer.
I know and Google itself says those measurements are not 100% correct but I noticed a slightly longer loading time of the pages myself.
The only "major" change I made recently to my site was me to add the addthis button.
I am aware that the performance of a site also can be caused by the server of the hosting company but within the past 8 months I hardly never had any problems for longer than maybe a couple days. I'm hosting with Hostgator, which seemed very reliable to me to this time.
So my only guess would be the script for the addthis button is causing a longer loading time of the pages. The change is pretty big as per Google, from once faster than 80% of other sites to slower than 70% of other sites or in numbers from less than 2 seconds for the homepage to 4.9 seconds for the homepage.

Has anybody else seen any changes after installing the addthis script?
Thank you for your response and input
verdecove

 

Yes I have had major slowdown because of addthis on my e107 site. So I had to remove it.

 

I'm having the same problems

if anybody else seen any changes after installing the addthis script?

I think I wouldn't like to remove addthis buttom I think it will help in socialbookmarking ! any helps?

 

That's exactly what I was afraid for. I had not added any new images or any other script and couldn't imagine the server capacity or performance to change so much.
I will watch it for another week and if it stays that bad i will have to remove the button too.
Thanks for your response rippa911.
verdecove

 

That's exactly the reason why I have installed it but not on the cause of loss of site performance. Google is putting some weight in site performance and it's hard enough to rank with a fast site, so a slow site for sure won't get up in the serp's. i bet there are other solutions or scripts but addthis available too.

Thanks also for your response malcon.
verdecove

 

Thanks verdecove for this reply , may you know any other addthis script to add to my sity , becouse I'm loosing the half of money that I earn
BR

 

Start using a memory cache mod or plugin with your apache and it will stop the increased page load times.