Optimizing WordPress Performance on Shared Web Hosting

Performance Tweaks for

Shared HostingJon Brown

j.Brown Studios@jb510

http://jbrownstudios.com

Saturday, October 6, 12



Tweaking WP Performance in 3

actsAct 1 - Inside WordPress

Act 2 - On your Shared Server

Act 3 - O! your Shared Server


Prelude


What am I going to cover today?

Performance Tweaks you can make on or with most shared hosting (not that

they won’t help on any hosting)


What am I not going to talk about today?

Geeky tweaks that are only suitable to VPS/Dedicated servers

(ie. APC, Memcached, Hyper DB, etc...)


Where to go for the advanced stu!?

http://wordpress.tv/

http://www.slideshare.net/

Joseph Scott

Barry Abrahamson

Ilya Grigorik

Iliya Polihronov

and many others...


http://wordpress.tv

http://wordpress.tv



http://wordpress.tv/2012/09/01/iliya-polihronov-high-performance-wordpress/

http://wordpress.tv/2012/09/01/iliya-polihronov-high-performance-wordpress/

Measuring Performance

• It’s hard to impossible to measure performance on shared servers

• How to measure anyway...

http://www.webpagetest.org


http://www.webpagetest.org/

http://www.webpagetest.org/

Why not use your browser tools?

• FireBug

• YSlow

• PageSpeed

• WebKit DevTools,

• etc...


WebPageTest.org


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The challenge with shared hosting

• Con"gured to run just about any type of web site

• Generalized not optimized

• Many performance tweaks available to dedicated/VPS hosting can’t be made

• Some performance tweaks you can make... starting in WordPress


The goal of all opitimization

• Reduce HTTP requests

• Reduce total data transfer

• Reduce CPU load

• Avoid Bottlenecks


Act 1

Tweaking inside

WordPress


Inside WordPress

1. Right size/compress images

2. Check for 404’s

3. Keep your DB under control

4. Caching inside WordPress


Right sizing images

• Upload the maximum pixel size you want to display, not larger

• Compress JPGs to 60-70% (aka 7 out of 12 in PhotoShop)

• Use WP Smush.it on already uploaded images to "x your past mistakes


Checking for 404’s

WebPageTest.org

or

FireBug / Webkit Dev Tools


Keep your DB under control

• Optimize DB

Plugin - WP DB Manager

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dbmanager/

• Tame Revisions

Plugin - Revision Control

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/revision-control/










Caching WordPress

• W3 Total Cache

• WP Super Cache

• WP Minify

• Others...


W3TC Con"g Guides

• http://c3mdigital.com/reduce-page-loading-time-w3-total-cache/

• http://headwaythemes.com/screencast-tuesday-using-w3-total-cache-part-1/

• http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/how-to-make-a-website/w3-total-cache-settings-wordpress-speed/


http://c3mdigital.com/reduce-page-loading-time-w3-total-cache/




http://headwaythemes.com/screencast-tuesday-using-w3-total-cache-part-1/




http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/how-to-make-a-website/w3-total-cache-settings-wordpress-speed/






W3TC Do’s & Dont’sfor shared hosting

• Do test settings

• Don’t assume turning everything up to 11 will work well... it won’t.

• Do take the time to "gure out minifying and combing "les it makes a huge di!erence

• Don’t forget to prime your cache


W3TC Minify Settings

Try Auto (Performance>General Settings)


W3TC Manual MinifyUse Manual (Performance>Min"y)

Lists all your CSS and JSfor easy manual additionand ordering

Lists all your CSS and JSfor easy manual additionand ordering


After Mini"cation


Before Mini"cation


Act 2

On your Shared Hosting Server


On your Server

1. PHP Version

2. DB Cleanup

3. Cloud#are (if your lucky)


Switch to a newer version of PHP

“PHP 5.2 to 5.3 - WordPress 15% faster”

~ Dmitry Stogov http://news.php.net/php.internals/36484

PHP 5.4 is even faster


mailto:dmitry+at+zend+dot+com

mailto:dmitry+at+zend+dot+com

http://news.php.net/php.internals/36484




How to change PHP versions

• Ask your web host...

• In cPanel "nd PHP Con"g

• Sometimes set in .htaccess via AddHandler


PHP 5.2 - 5.3 - 5.4


Keep Your DB under control

• PHPMyAdmin to Optimize MySQL Tables if you didn’t want to use the WP DB Manager plugin to do it


CloudFlare free awesomeness

CDN + Site Optimizer + Security


Some Host Integrating CloudFlare with cPanel

• http://www.cloud#are.com/hosting-partners

(DreamHost, BlueHost, many more...)


http://www.cloudflare.com/hosting-partners




Enable CloudFlare in your cPanel


W3 Total Cachecan control CloudFlare


One Caveat


Act 3

O! your Shared Hosting Server


O! your server

1. CDNs (CloudFlare is Free)


CloudFlare

CDN + Optimizer + Security


Setup Cloud#are

1. Setup CloudFlare account (free)

2. Have CloudFlare scan your DNS records (check your records)

3. Repoint your nameservers

4. Done


Why

• Reduces requests to your server

• Reduces requests to your CDN if you use one

• Adds security

• Optimizer features (I use W3TC)


So where does it get us?


Where we started

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W3TC Mini"cation

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W3TC + CloudFlare

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Optimizing WordPress Performance on Shared Web Hosting

Technology

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