Identify slow wordpress module

clint_silver

firstly no names, no host bashing going on.

I got a guy to develop site in wordpress, site is hosted with a small irish hoster.
Site is slow to load 9-10 seconds, developer says site is tiny, 3-4mb tops with very basic modules and problem is on hoster side. I rang host, host says its on code side, either way its developed or a module isn't loaded properly and to go back to developer.

So how do I tell this myself? Is there a a site that will tell me how long it took for a particular module to load so I can identify it is that or more a general slowness? Like a wait interface for everything it loads so I can go back to developer OR host with evidence.

Graham

GTMetrix.com is worth a look to see if the Javascript or something on the front-end is causing the lag. It's essentially an online site speed test. Also useful to show you if performance is improving when you make changes.

P3 Plugin Performance Profiler is a WordPress plugin that will give you hints for slow plugins.

SilverSideUp

Open the site in Google Chrome developer mode (F12). The Network tab shows how long it takes to load each of the files required for your web page.

daymobrew

https://tools.pingdom.com/ is helpful too.

Would you be able to post a link?

shane7

Its hard to say without a link to the site to know which side the problem lies with.
But if the site is loading slow all the time its likely the fault of the developer. If it loads promptly most of the time and the slow load time is only occasional then it likely falls with the hosting company. Generally with shared hosting you will find your site might slow down when its busy and the server is being put under pressure. 
But to be honest I have seen a lot of web designers or so called web designers who have absolutely no idea how to optimise a site. They don't use gzip compression, don't use caching resources and don't render javascript and css files. Not saying that's true in your case but there is a lot of cowboys about that just do copy and paste jobs. If you want to PM me a link Ill have a quick look and see if the site is optimised or not

Graham

shane7 wrote: »

But if the site is loading slow all the time its likely the fault of the developer.

or the €5/year hosting package that has your site running on the same mega cheap virtual server with 5000 other WP sites.

shane7 wrote: »

But to be honest I have seen a lot of web designers or so called web designers who have absolutely no idea how to optimise a site. They don't use gzip compression, don't use caching resources and don't render javascript and css files.

I wouldn't really expect a web designer to look after gzip on the server. I guess if he/she setup and manages the hosting

How does a web designer 'render javascript and css'?

shane7

Common sense would dictate that if he is only spending €5 a year on hosting he wouldn't be on here wondering why his site is slow.

Gzip compression can be enabled with a click of a button on most CMS  Or upload a htaccess file with the website. It really is quite basic stuff. If you are paid to  design a site you upload it, test it and make sure its running right why on earth you wouldn't expect a web designer to do that is quite baffling.

How does a web designer 'render javascript and css? Sorry that confuses you but again its basic stuff. You remove render-blocking JavaScript and optimise your CSS .

mneylon

Make sure caching is turned on in Wordpress.
Check how many SQL queries are needed to render a page.
Check how many plugins are enabled - some developers / designers can go a little overboard and not all plugins are created equal. Some are very badly coded

Graham

shane7 wrote: »

Common sense would dictate that if he is only spending €5 a year on hosting he wouldn't be on here wondering why his site is slow.

I've come across plenty of sites where it doesn't occur to the site owner that a pocket-money/back-bedroom host isn't appropriate for running a business web site.

Poor hosting is pretty painless and inexpensive to fix. I'd certainly start looking there before assuming relatively expensive redevelopment work is required.

shane7 wrote: »

zip compression can be enabled with a click of a button on most CMS Or upload a htaccess file with the website. It really is quite basic stuff. If you are paid to design a site you upload it, test it and make sure its running right why on earth you wouldn't expect a web designer to do that is quite baffling.

I'm taking 'web designer' literally, as in somebody who designs websites. You can't assume that person looks after the infrastructure/hosting or even has access to it.

shane7 wrote: »

How does a web designer 'render javascript and css? Sorry that confuses you but again its basic stuff. You remove render-blocking JavaScript and optimise your CSS .

It doesn't confuse me at all, I'm sure you originally meant web designers make sure there is no render blocking js/css for the browsers to render.

TLDR

We don't know the site, we don't know the hosting, we don't know the developer, we don't know the plugins in use. It's probably wise not to make any assumptions about any of those elements.

clint_silver

thanks for all feedback guys.

hosting is pretty cheap but not 5e a year. Just something I was trying to get off the ground so not too bothered by it if its a "bit slow" but up to 60 seconds to load a 5mb site is a bit much. That gtmetrics site really showed me all the above points re javascript and compression.

site is down to 3mb and about 20 seconds but its still what I would perceive to be "way too slow".

Developer is working through the gtmetrics recommendations.

Its an upwork guy, and yes I know you get what you pay for in this world, am happy enough with the design element of it which is where I was struggling. I'll wait and see does he say he's done all he can before I might get someone else to take a quick look.

shane7

Graham wrote: »

shane7 wrote: »

Common sense would dictate that if he is only spending €5 a year on hosting he wouldn't be on here wondering why his site is slow.

I've come across plenty of sites where it doesn't occur to the site owner that a pocket-money/back-bedroom host isn't appropriate for running a business web site.

Poor hosting is pretty painless and inexpensive to fix. I'd certainly start looking there before assuming relatively expensive redevelopment work is required.

shane7 wrote: »

zip compression can be enabled with a click of a button on most CMS  Or upload a htaccess file with the website. It really is quite basic stuff. If you are paid to  design a site you upload it, test it and make sure its running right why on earth you wouldn't expect a web designer to do that is quite baffling.

I'm taking 'web designer' literally, as in somebody who designs websites. You can't assume that person looks after the infrastructure/hosting or even has access to it.

shane7 wrote: »

How does a web designer 'render javascript and css? Sorry that confuses you but again its basic stuff. You remove render-blocking JavaScript and optimise your CSS .

It doesn't confuse me at all, I'm sure you originally meant web designers make sure there is no render blocking js/css for the browsers to render.

TLDR

We don't know the site, we don't know the hosting, we don't know the developer, we don't know the plugins in use.  It's probably wise not to make any assumptions about any of those elements.

I didn't make any assumptions that's why I gave a logical reason that if his site was on shared hosting and it was only slow occasionally it may have been his hosting.  Its also why I said it might not be true in his case because you know I wasn't making any assumptions. 

"I'm taking 'web designer' literally, as in somebody who designs websites" 
Well I take 'web designer'[font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]  as in someone who designs a site, tests its functionality, uploads it to a server and makes sure its optimised correctly. You know actually doing their job right. [/font]

[font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But seeing as you seem to think a web designer should hand a website over to a client without correctly optimising it I don't think Ill take too much of what you say overly seriously.[/font]

Graham

clint_silver wrote: »

thanks for all feedback guys.

hosting is pretty cheap but not 5e a year. Just something I was trying to get off the ground so not too bothered by it if its a "bit slow" but up to 60 seconds to load a 5mb site is a bit much. That gtmetrics site really showed me all the above points re javascript and compression.

site is down to 3mb and about 20 seconds but its still what I would perceive to be "way too slow".

Developer is working through the gtmetrics recommendations.

Its an upwork guy, and yes I know you get what you pay for in this world, am happy enough with the design element of it which is where I was struggling. I'll wait and see does he say he's done all he can before I might get someone else to take a quick look.

GT Metrix is a very handy resource, it's well worth checking your site every now and then to monitor performance over time.

If your site is fairly static, take a look at Cloudflare for their free CDN offering. It shouldn't really be used to mask poor site/server performance (you should still address that) but it can definitely give a site a fairly healthy speed boost.

Nothing wrong with the off-shoring approach but it's rare to find a budget freelancer that's able for the design/development/optimisation and infrastructure side of a website. Those that are tend to command rates that negate the advantages of off-shoring.

jmcc

clint_silver wrote: »

I got a guy to develop site in wordpress, site is hosted with a small irish hoster.

This, to me, means someone reselling a larger hosting company's hardware and bandwidth. If they have their own dedicated servers and a a small number of clients on them, then it should be OK. However, if it is on an overloaded server with thousands of other sites, as others have pointed out in the thread, you are going to see problems because unless some kind of quota system is in place, a memory/resource hog of a website could slow down everyone's site.

So how do I tell this myself?

Not sure if you will be able. However, one way is to remove one module/plugin at a time and test the response time.

WP plugins can be a security nightmare as it is necessary to keep all of them up to date. Most of the compromised websites in the Irish markets are compromised because of plugins that have not been updated.

Regards...jmcc

clint_silver

howdy, quick up date, developer worked through some of the gtmetrix findings and said he'd got it as quick as he could, site was down to just under 3mb and to go back to host.

i went to host who said it was definitely code but couldnt comment further without me hiring them, which I kind of understand, they said I could also look at an SSD hosting plan which could help. I took out a trial of their SSD plan and site went from 30 seconds to 2 seconds on desktop and 40-50 seconds to 4-5 seconds on mobile.

Now if it was code that was causing it (a slow module/plugin/unoptimized images or something) would that kind of performance increase be really expected? I mean its not much anyway, maybe couple euro extra a month but still.

daymobrew

While a SSD would be faster, I would not expect a 10-15 factor improvement. If you think about the entire web page rendering timeline, reading from disk is not a significant part of it. I would guess that the server with the SSD had less sites on it (you said it was a trial - is it a new offering for that company?)

clint_silver

daymobrew wrote: »

While a SSD would be faster, I would not expect a 10-15 factor improvement. If you think about the entire web page rendering timeline, reading from disk is not a significant part of it. I would guess that the server with the SSD had less sites on it (you said it was a trial - is it a new offering for that company?)

While it is a new hosting offering from the hoster, the trial refers to me trying it to see could the speed improve.

I think I need more of a review of the site as if you say its a new hosting offering which it is and it gets busier then Im back to same place over time

daymobrew

clint_silver wrote: »

While it is a new hosting offering from the hoster, the trial refers to me trying it to see could the speed improve.

So, the offering is probably not experiencing the same loads as the existing service that you are using.

Did you try out the P3 Performance Profiler Plugin?
What about Query Monitor? (to see how many queries are being made)

Maybe you could give us a list of active plugins.

clint_silver

daymobrew wrote: »

So, the offering is probably not experiencing the same loads as the existing service that you are using.

Did you try out the P3 Performance Profiler Plugin?
What about Query Monitor? (to see how many queries are being made)

Maybe you could give us a list of active plugins.

I'll jump on this evening to take a look at this

thank you for all feedback so far.

wonga77

Just my 2 cents, id be very cautious using the P3 plugin. Twice it has crashed sites on me. It's very useful when it works but a pain in the ass when it doesn't. I stopped using it a good while ago. I wouldn't mind but I think there's a very good market for that type of plugin, its a pity it hasnt been updated or maintained

daymobrew

wonga77 wrote: »

Just my 2 cents, id be very cautious using the P3 plugin. Twice it has crashed sites on me. It's very useful when it works but a pain in the ass when it doesn't. I stopped using it a good while ago. I wouldn't mind but I think there's a very good market for that type of plugin, its a pity it hasnt been updated or maintained

If it works then it is very helpful though I had a slow site where it gave crazy, inaccurate results. I've never had it crash.

Bizarrely I did have Query Monitor break a WooCommerce site with Flatsome theme - it wouldn't allow customers (who weren't logged in) to add to cart. Very strange and very annoying. But I've never seen that elsewhere.

Having said that, try them out and deactivate them when you're finished.