Wordpress hosting

jamesbil

Hi all,
I currently use wordpress for my website along with woocommerce.
My hosting provider recently advised upgrading to wordpress hosting package.
All he could tell me really is the availability of Litespeed Caching for WordPress hosting plans.
is it worth paying extra for? I read somewhere about doing it with plugins?
Any advice welcome
Thanks
James

M.T.D

The hosting with Litespeed is not the same as but works in conjunction with the Litespeed plugin.
Litespeed is used instead of apache and among other things delivers cached content quicker than WordPress will.

You still need to optimise your site to get the best benefit. Make sure images are the required size and compression and are not resizing on delivery. Check that any plugins you are using are not hogging resources, some are not as well written as others and many more

If you do everything correctly and are using litespeed you should be able to get your site to load in under 1 sec. Remember many, if not most, visitors will be on a mobile or tablet, with possibly bad connections, and that "1 sec" could in reality, be 5 or 6 secs.


People don't want to wait around, so you will lose customers if your site is slow.

daymobrew

What is the price difference between current and WordPress hosting?

I have sites on regular hosting and use WP Super Cache to generate static html pages that are served very quickly. The htaccess rules serve the static page without even invoking WordPress.

As M.T.D. says, other optimisations are important too.

jamesbil

Thanks for the reply,
I do want my site to load as fast as possible.
I think its ok but I'm finding the back end a little slow.

I think its another €3 or 4 per month more. It all adds up. I just couldn't work out the difference between the hosting I have and what they were offering.

I'm with hosting Ireland.

daymobrew

jamesbil wrote: »

I think its ok but I'm finding the back end a little slow.

What plugins and theme are you running?

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

What plugins and theme are you running?

theme is ocean wp, running quite a few plugins

M.T.D

quoting from your other thread.
"I am using plugins to do a lot and code snippets.

Where are you putting your code snippets? In a functions file in a child theme or a utility plugin?

You would appear to have overlap of functions in the plugins you are using

We can give more help with fixing some of your site issues but not having all the info about your set up can make it take longer than needed

jamesbil

M.T.D wrote: »

quoting from your other thread.
"I am using plugins to do a lot and code snippets.

Where are you putting your code snippets? In a functions file in a child theme or a utility plugin?

You would appear to have overlap of functions in the plugins you are using

We can give more help with fixing some of your site issues but not having all the info about your set up can make it take longer than needed

thanks so much for all the advice.
I'm using a snippet plugin.
What other info about my setup should I supply?
Using wordpress with woocommerce, ocean wp theme, elementor and themify to customise. But I think they are clashing a bit so one should go.

daymobrew

A list of active plugins would be helpful.

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

A list of active plugins would be helpful.

Ok, I know I'll get told off for having so many plugins..

Code snippets. I use it to remove sku
Contact form 7.
Customer reviews for woocommerce. Sends reminder to review to customer
Elementor
ExportFeed for WooCommerce Product To Etsy
Facebook for WooCommerce
Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP) . By exact metrics. Its slow.
Jetpack by WordPress.com
Ocean Extra
Premmerce Frequently Bought Together for WooCommerce. Might drop this
Product Slider for WooCommerce
Quick View for WooCommerce
Really Simple SSL
Smush
Strong Testimonials
Themify Popup
W3 Total Cache
WooCommerce
WooCommerce Blocks
WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Gateway
WooCommerce PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, Delivery Notes & Shipping Labels (Basic). Only use this for invoice.
WooCommerce Product Archive Customiser
WooCommerce Product Feed
WooCommerce Services
WooCommerce Stripe Gateway
WP GDPR Compliance
Yoast SEO

27 in all!

jamesbil

Is there any way to easily see if a plugin is in use?
Or is it a case of deactivate it and look for issues?

Axwell

Your problem here isn't so much the plugins you are using..its more so the ones you arent using or haven't implemented properly. When I scan your website and the load times and why its slow I can see you have work to do on image optimisation, compression, caching and minifying scripts. I know a lot of this you arent familiar with but you have went with the DIY option so time to do some reading. All of these have a big impact on the loading time and getting it down to a reasonable number.

Go here https://gtmetrix.com/ do a scan of your website (make sure its testing from London as the nearest location). Then look at the grades under page speed and the ones that are bad you then need to read why and read the suggestions to improve them. Some of them you can adjust in W3 Cache which you have installed, others can be done with plugins like Auto Optimize or WP Rocket and for images things like Smush, EWWW or Shoprt Pixel.

Also you should be using a child theme instead of a code snippets plugin. A child theme lets you keep all the functionality and settings etc of the main theme (Ocean WP) but make changes in the child theme with code snippets that will be used instead of those in the parent one..hence replacing the need for the code snippets plugin and the extra resources it needs.

Something like this - https://docs.oceanwp.org/article/90-sample-child-theme

Also it looks like MailChimp is in use on your website but you dont mention it in your plugin list. It alone is causing a delay of .5s on your site loading time, might not seem like a lot but it adds up with everything else..especially if you arent actually using it or planning to. Its for the newsletter subscription form you have on the homepage, are you planning on regularly emailing a newsletter to your customers and subscribers?

There's enough in above to keep you busy and improve things. I would look at implementing these fixes and then worry about a CDN.

daymobrew

I suggest changing from Contact Form 7 to Ninja Forms or WP Forms.
I found CF7 to be slow and a drag even on pages without a form.

Really Simple SSL - I always disable this and fix the mixed content issues in the database (or it might be as simple as uploading an image again).

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP - You say it's slow. Just go to GA site for your data. This plugin has changed owner recently and they are really trying to monetise it.

I agree with Axwell that the code snippets plugin is not a good idea - it requires accessing the database for each snippet. Putting the code into a child theme or a functional plugin gets the same results without any database access. And it reduces security vulnerabilities (code in the db - eeek).

jamesbil

Great thanks!

Ok,
Child theme activated, code snippets plugin gone.
Subscribe form gone.
Contact form 7 gone
Google analytics gone
Still got Really simple ssl an I dont know how to fix the data base.
I have run smush and while it smushed 420 images it doesnt seem to have done anything.

M.T.D

Which security plugin are you using?

jamesbil

Only thing I can see is part of Jetpack

jamesbil

In GT Metrix a couple of things I'm having trouble improving in the page speed tab are;

Optimize images. Ive run Smush and Auto Optimize but no different.
Minify JS. This is on in W3 Total Cache and Auto Optimize but still quite a list.
Leverage Browser Caching. This is on in W3 Total Cache and Auto Optimize but still lists 4 pages.


There are more things in the YSlow tab but Im trying to do one thing at a time.

jamesbil

Ok, I'm getting there gradually.

Images optimized!

Still need to Minify JS and leverage Browser caching.

In YSlow I have these issues

Add Expires headers
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Make fewer HTTP requests
Use cookie-free domains
Reduce DNS lookups

Graham

Some of those you won't eliminate, particularly where you're pulling resources from a 3rd party server.

Each time you see a resource being pulled from a 3rd party, ask yourself whether it's essential or not. If it is, just move onto the next. If it's not, get rid.

You can't control expires headers etc from 3rd parties.

Take a look at the waterfall view in GT Metrix. It should be immediately obvious if there's anything specific dragging its feet.

Nice work by the way.

Home page has gone from:

7.6sec, 3.33MB, 119 requests

to

3.2sec 1.88MB, 39 requests

daymobrew

jamesbil wrote: »

Still got Really simple ssl an I dont know how to fix the data base.

When you deactivate it what files are loaded over http?

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

When you deactivate it what files are loaded over http?

How do I check? If I deactivate it not all pages are https

jamesbil

I've been getting 508 errors on the backend, resource limit reached.
And 503 service unavailable

Any ideas?

daymobrew

jamesbil wrote: »

How do I check? If I deactivate it not all pages are https

Deactivate it (for a few mins). Visit a page. Open console (right click, Inspect Element, "Console" tab and look for messages about items loaded over http instead of https. Copy/paste the text here.

jamesbil

I'm getting these messages in console.

A cookie associated with a cross-site resource at <URL> was set without the `SameSite` attribute. A future release of Chrome will only deliver cookies with cross-site requests if they are set with `SameSite=None` and `Secure`. You can review cookies in developer tools under Application>Storage>Cookies and see more details at <URL> and <URL>.
032a6.js:6

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'classList' of null
at 032a6.js:6
at 032a6.js:6
(anonymous) @ 032a6.js:6
(anonymous) @ 032a6.js:6

DevTools failed to parse SourceMap: http://jamesbillingsfurniture.com/wp-content/cache/minify/smush-rd.min.js.map
DevTools failed to parse SourceMap: http://jamesbillingsfurniture.com/wp-content/cache/minify/smush-lazy-load.min.js.map

daymobrew

jamesbil wrote: »

I'm getting these messages in console.
....

You can pretty much ignore those. I don't see any http/https issues there. Do you have the secure icon showing or 'Not secure'?

jamesbil

If I disable it I dont have a padlock symbol

Graham

What are you enabling/disabling?

jamesbil

Graham wrote: »

What are you enabling/disabling?

The really simple ssl plugin.

daymobrew

Can you disable it and reply here.
The console messages you posted didn't mention http/https.

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

Can you disable it and reply here.
The console messages you posted didn't mention http/https.

Those console messages were with it disabled.

daymobrew

Can you disable it and let us know so we can browse around to find the mixed content issues?

daymobrew

Oh yeah, a link to the site would be good too.

jamesbil

thats disabled at jamesbillingsfurniture.com

daymobrew

It looks like the url in Settings/General has http instead of https.
Change that (it will log you out when you Save) and it'll be a good step towards not needing Really Simple SSL.

I'm heading out for a walk but will check when I get back.

daymobrew

http://jamesbillingsfurniture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cropped-untitled-7-1.png is loaded over http.
Is this your logo?
Fixing it is probably as simple as setting it as the logo again.
(You may have to upload it again).

This was on the home page. All the other pages seemed fine.

jamesbil

ok, really simple ssl is disabled and I updated the address to https in settings/general
however i'm still getting a not secure message in the address bar, no padlock symbol

jamesbil

also not showing product images or homepage logo. If really simple ssl is on its all ok

jamesbil

ive switched it back on in case I get any visitors

jamesbil

So as far as I can work out auto optimise and w3 total cache are messing things up.
When they are activated my homepage logo disappears as do all my product images in "store"

Think I've fixed the ssl issue. Looked at my cpanel details, address wass http: so I changed it to https:

Axwell

Go here and follow step 6 onwards to properly setup your ssl and then check for any mixed content and how to fix it.

https://wpbuffs.com/wordpress-https-mixed-content/

daymobrew

jamesbil wrote: »

So as far as I can work out auto optimise and w3 total cache are messing things up.

Have you tried activating one at a time?
Is it possible that those plugins have cached stuff from before you made the Site Address change?

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

Have you tried activating one at a time?
Is it possible that those plugins have cached stuff from before you made the Site Address change?

I have tried one at a time.
And yes they did cache before I made the address change.

daymobrew

Is the SSL all sorted now?

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

Is the SSL all sorted now?

only because I turned on really simple ssl
I have mixed content without it.

daymobrew

jamesbil wrote: »

only because I turned on really simple ssl
I have mixed content without it.

Even after you cleared the Autoptimize and W3 Total Cache caches?

The .htaccess code should help. I use it on my sites:

IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://jamesbillingsfurniture.com/$1 [R,L]
</IfModule>

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

Even after you cleared the Autoptimize and W3 Total Cache caches?

The .htaccess code should help. I use it on my sites:

IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://jamesbillingsfurniture.com/$1 [R,L]
</IfModule>

I tried adding that but my site wouldn't work with it. If I did it right.
I went to cpanel/filemanager/my site then right click and edit to add it.

Axwell

Axwell wrote: »

Go here and follow step 6 onwards to properly setup your ssl and then check for any mixed content and how to fix it.

https://wpbuffs.com/wordpress-https-mixed-content/

Did you go through this?

jamesbil

Axwell wrote: »

Did you go through this?

As far as I could, tho now I think I was looking at the wrong .htaccess file.
Should it be the one in public html?

Step 7 (really simple ssl works.)

daymobrew

jamesbil wrote: »

Should it be the one in public html?

Yes, the one in public_html. The one with the WordPress rules:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

jamesbil

daymobrew wrote: »

Yes, the one in public_html. The one with the WordPress rules:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Thanks,
So I guess disable really simple ssl plugin, then do this?

jamesbil

Like this?
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://jamesbillingsfurniture.com/$1 [R,L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress