Site Troubles
As you may have noticed, my site has been going offline frequently these days. Apparently this is because for some reason it is consuming too much of the shared hosting server’s CPU power.
This is not due, say, to a sudden increase in traffic (my traffic has more or less been pretty stable over some time now), no’r does it seem to be caused by any newly implemented changes in the site code itself (as far as I know there aren’t any). I am thus somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed in terms of getting this problem fixed. The people at my hosting company, Webuilders, have actually been rather patient and flexible in terms of communicating with me and managing this issue, but I still don’t know what to do…
I’ll figure out some sort of solution sooner or later I’m sure; I just wanted to let everybody know that this situation will hopefully be dealt with soon and in the meantime I apologize for the inconvenience.
My site goes down 1-3 times a day (that I know of at least) for 5 mins at a time. My webhost is pretty good, but I can’t afford a VPS right now (I don’t monetize my site in any way.)
PHP scripts can take up your CPU usage a lot. People will tell you that you don’t need a cache plugin unless you get 100s of thousands of visitors a day — NOT true. Even if you only get 5000 visitors, a caching mechanism can SIGNIFICANTLY reduce CPU cycles by reducing the number of SQL statement executions and reducing the PHP load.
If you don’t have a cache plugin, I recommend one.
Why not upgrade your site to dedicated hosting or virtual private hosting?
I believe the money that you earn from here able to effort a VPS hosting or dedicated.
Provides better services to your reader…
Rich is refering to WP-Super Cache Im sure, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/ but there are other may be less “complicated” tricks – like WP-Widget cache http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-widget-cache/ May be both! Super Cache is the ultimate I guess but the little widget cache is super easy to install and test. Should be 100% safe to play with.
To test cache make WP tell you number of queries by inserting a line of code in footer http://wordpress.org/support/topic/151287 Then enable Widget cache and compare.
I am sure I am going to be flamed for being a smart a** but this is just a suggestion
I looked at your host’s site, not sure how you are using any or which of their shared as you mentioned or something higher plans, you might have gotten a deal or add-ons or something…either way you can get a very decent, not fly by night, VPS for comparable or even less and one that even includes management.
Hostgator all the way. I know, you probably have a pretty solid host right now, but Hostgator is top notch when it comes to uptime and customer service.
In addition to a caching plug-in, you should also seriously consider upgrading WP from 2.5.1 to the latest (2.6.3). Some of the fixes are security ones, and someone hacking the site and running their own stuff can certainly cause similar problems. I assume that’s not the case now, or the people from your host would have probably noticed, but better to prevent any more problems…
Hi Samer, You should diagnose your site with Yslow and optimize your site.
Hi there,
Maybe some of the links you include in your message is actively trying to connect to some sites…
Tony
Thanks so much guys for your input.
I tried WP-Super Cache hoping for a quick fix and… it seems to have worked.
My site wasn’t shut off since and it seems quite a bit faster to boot!
Thanks Alfred for letting me know about Yslow. I didn’t know about it and although I haven’t tried it yet I surely will at some point.
Also thanks to reader Davinder for emailing me about the WP-Super Cache plugin!
I’ve been to your host company’s website and I’m kinda surprised, by how small the bandwith&storage is while the monthly price is very expensive. Take a look at Lunarpages(which I’ve been using for my website) or Hostgator(which has a good reputation), etc. Even their basic plans are better than this.
Hope this would help.
Hmm.. I may have spoken too soon, as I noticed my site was not accessible a while ago. Keeping my fingers crossed.
@ Xiaoyue: thanks for the tip. I chose my hosting company for the sole reason that they are based in Seattle where I live and I can pick up the phone and speak to the guy personally if I need to. I wanted that human touch after my experience with my previous host, which was disastrous to say the least.
You know … you don’t have to use a host that limits your cpu. Honestly, it’s just an arbitrary way to keep you from using all of the bandwidth, etc, that they promise when you sign up. There are plenty of hosts (plus vps) that don’t limit you by cpu.