The speed of my site do you agree with my hosting company

[ClaireH-184886]

Hi my site is www.in2town.co.uk and i have to be honest i am not really happy at the moment. i took a huge gamble because my site was getting around 10,000 visitors per day but because the site was getting really slow as i was using the old joomla my hosting company suggested to me to use the modern version of joomla as i was using joomla 1.0  Now for months i said no but they said the site would remain slow until i updated it.

I decided to take a gamble and as i was going to now move it to the new joomla i decided that i would redo the whole site and make it better which i am doing at the moment. But even though i am paying for a dedicated server and have done what they have said and using the new joomla and according to them they have refreshed my database the site is still running slow.

If anyone could do a test on the site and let me know what speed they are getting.

Below is the email i have sent to my hosting company and below is also the resonce that i am getting from them.- I would love to hear your feedback as i have taken a huge gamble and when i get back from spain i will be continuing the finish the site which will take me another week to complate and get it the way i want it.

here is the feedback

hi can you please look into my site www.in2town.co.uk as i am getting lots of reports that it is slow. we redone the whole site which i am still working on because of it being slow and you said that you cleared everything in my database so there was nothing there so we can start from scratch. when i started building the new site you said that the database would be like a brand new one but it seems that this is not working.

what i mean by this is, we listened to you and got a dedicated server as you said this would make the site faster, this did not work, you said about redoing the site and using the latest joomla as this would make the site faster and after a lot of work we done this although we are still continuing to build it and as a result of this we lost lots of traffic and links and rankings but even though we done this the site is still slow.

i have to be very honest with you, i am not happy and feel disapointed as the site is slow and i need this sorting out.

i am in spain at the moment meeting clients ref the site and it is embarrassing when they say the site is slow so please can you look into this for me

Hello,

Thank you for contacting TMDHosting Technical Support Team.

We have checked your current server load and it is below 1:

top - 11:53:54 up 123 days, 9:47, 1 user, load average: 0.24, 0.12, 0.11

this is shows that the system is running fine. You have close to 1GB RAM free which provides enough resources for your scripts to function. As the server state is healthy the optimization of your website should be applied on its coding and main functions. This is a development related optimization and we do not offer development services at this point.

If your developer recommends a server with more resources provide us with his/hers requirements and we will provide you with suitable solution.

Should you have any further questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards,

Gabriel Reed

from me.,

i will have to have someone look into this as it may be a case that i will have to get rid of my dedicated server and take the sites to another hosting company and see the difference with them and see if the site is faster as no one else using joomla has the problems that i am having. can you let me know what speed the site is then, and then compare this against some other sites. for example, female first, claire hegarty.co.uk etc as when i do speed checks i am getting back over ten seconds and the site which is very small at the moment should not be more than 2 seconds

Hello,

Please note that even if you move the website to another hosting provider this will not change the reason because of which its speed is not as per your requirements. However it is up to you to explore different options.

What we have ensured is that your server is not overloaded and it has resources for the functions on it to run. The optimization of your website coding I am afraid are outside of our technical the scope of our technical support.

Additionally note that the loading speed of your website depends on huge number of other factors on certain remote locations which are not under our control.

Should you have any further questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards,

Gabriel Reed
Senior Support Team
TMDHosting.com

If anyone can please comment on this and look at my site www.in2town.co.uk and test it for me on speed and advise me as i have done everything they have said and it seems that the site is no faster. There is not much content on there at the moment as they managed to lose over 20,000 pages of content while transfering it all which i am not happy about.

So there should not be an issue on speed and now i am working through and putting some of the old content back on while writing new content

[RyanKent]

One additional note Diane. I am confident your web server itself is working properly and the issue is the site optimization. I performed a test of loading your site on the Alerta link I provided in the initial reply and most locations load your site in 10+ seconds. When I repeat the same test with your robots.txt URL (http://www.in2town.co.uk/robots.txt) the maximum load time is HongKong which is less then 1 second.

Your site does not have a 404 page so I used the emptiest page I could find for an additional test (http://www.in2town.co.uk/Discount-Shopping). That page's worst loading time in the US and UK was still under 6 seconds. While that's not good, it is much better then your home page loading time. This again indicates your issues are related to optimization of your site.

[stefanok]

Sure, just pm'd you yesterday

[RyanKent]

The issues on your site are not specific to Joomla but general in nature. Optimizing images, implementing a CDN, setting up caching, compressing files, using sprites to serve images, etc.

None of these steps are particularly time consuming but they are technical in nature. There is not any easy to read article I can direct you to which will help a non-technical person be able to implement this changes. Each requires a good understanding of various elements of web design and programming.

I went ahead and sent you a PM. In short, you can install PageSpeed and YSlow, use them to analyze your site and they offer initial guidance on what issues need to be addressed and what steps should be taken.

[ClaireH-184886]

WOuld it be possible tp pm me with some more advice on how to optimise the site to speed up the site. many thanks for your help stehano

[ClaireH-184886]

hi can you please pm me and give me some tips on the following message. my budget is nearly nil now and i need to do this myself but not sure how to do it, so any advice on how to do it to speed up the site would be great. i will sort out the images when i get back and will sort out the side panel. what i was trying to do with the side panel was like the sun newspaper site where they have the latest news appear on the side panel as well as on the main page, so yes it does appear twice, but if you feel this is bad then i will change this.

i would love to receive lots of advice from you as a joomla expert as i seriously need help to sort the site out, so any advice would be great.

the below advice on how to do this would be great

The above two items are mostly quality issues I noticed and not a direct cause of your speed issues. The main problem I am seeing with your site speed is a very poor optimization as represented by a PageSpeed score of 54. Ideally you want you score to be 9x. I recognize you are not a technical person so I'll just share your site is in desperate need of optimization. You should see a dramatic improvement in page load speeds once it is properly optimized.

[RyanKent]

Diane, I have taken a look at your site and it seems likely your hosting company is correct. If their reports are showing the site's server is running optimally with no issues, then you should work to optimize your site's code and content. I would share the following suggestions:

• first, I notice the quality of some images are quite low. As a lifestyle magazine form of website, images are very important. It appears some of your images are grainy and stretched. I would recommend only using clear, sharp images especially on your home page.

• next, your sidebar on the home page is almost entirely a duplication of your main content area, including images. I would suggest adding unique content to the sidebar which differs from your main content area, or remove the side bar.

The above two items are mostly quality issues I noticed and not a direct cause of your speed issues. The main problem I am seeing with your site speed is a very poor optimization as represented by a PageSpeed score of 54. Ideally you want you score to be 9x. I recognize you are not a technical person so I'll just share your site is in desperate need of optimization. You should see a dramatic improvement in page load speeds once it is properly optimized.

Also, your site performance would be significantly boosted by using a Content Delivery Network. You are running a fashion site which ideally would be sharing many high quality images to a world-wide audience. The biggest hit on site loading speed will be the time it takes for those images to load. A CDN will copy your images and other content then make it available on numerous servers located throughout the world. When a visitor attempts to load a web page, the images would be loaded from a nearby server which will improve your site's performance.

I checked the ClaireHegarty site and their site is actually poorly optimized as well, but they have hardly any images so the negative impacts are not felt. The FemaleFirst.co.uk site does use images more similarly to your site and their PageSpeed score is a 76.

A tool you can use to measure page load speeds for a given site from around the world: http://www.alertra.com/spotcheck_do

TL;DR - Your web server seems fine. You need a developer to spend a day on your site optimizing it with a goal of at least a 8x PageSpeed score. Additionally I recommend using a CDN. Neither of these suggestions are expensive (relatively speaking) and both should eliminate your speed problems.

[stefanok]

@.5. Having images is fine but due to slowing down the speed i would at least cut down on the duplicated stories and images

@7.Ideally, yes but i dont believe its a must. Im sure you are getting traffic from the US too. I would however be concerned about the slow loading time though.

@8. Dont worry, just a question

If these tips helped you then feel free to mark this as answered

[ClaireH-184886]

5. i have the images on the site to showcase the stories, i was looking at sites like the sun, the people, the mirror etc which showcase the stories by having the images on the front page. any advice on this would be great as i want people to come to my home page and see all the content that is available.

6. yes just noticed this to, will sort out when i am back in england

7. server location. the hosting company is tmd hosting which i was told about, do you feel that i should be looking at a company in the uk then.

8. not sure on this question as the hosting company is tmd hosting and i use a mac at home.

[stefanok]

K2 is great but be wise on how you use it. Keep the images on the front page low. Try and enable a cache that does not disrupt the users experience but enhances the websites loading time for repeat visitors

[stefanok]

Sometimes sh404 can also cause a delay.

Basically, it depends on the version. I personally always use artio, works well for me and dont have speed issues. They also have many compatibility plugins for forums and other components which helps alot :-).

Adding a  forum would be great. I prefer to use Kunena which is also has a plugin for Artio

[ClaireH-184886]

i am using sh404sef. i am uising k2 because i was told it was a good component to use but have found it to be a bit of a pain but not much i can do about it now although i would like to. i would love your input on the site as a fellow joomla, as this site has been around for some years now and we were getting over 10,000 a day but then i redone the site trying to make it fresh and better and have come across a lot of problems because of errors that have happened with the hosting company and their advice.

i want to get the site back to 10,000 visitors a day and make it fresh and new

the aim of the site is mainly for women, it is a magazine site for them with a view at 70 women and 30 per cent men.

the site is a magazine site that covers showbiz gossip, lifestyle news, travel reviews and news, fashion, etc and i would like to include a forum on the site.

[stefanok]

5. Too many images on front page. Over 40. Try cut that down as most is repeated.

6. Noticed your footer is duplicated. Wont affect speed but needs to be cleaned up

7. Server Location: I see your domain is hosted in the US. Not a problem at all but perhaps the pc's the company uses could have an effect and bandwith etc.

8. Are you running on a linux server or widows, out of curiosity?

[ClaireH-184886]

thanks stefano, i am running k2 but nothing else as yet beside the sh404sef i want to transform the  site and make it more active for the readers by adding a forum, so any advice on that would be great. i was considering adding a moving screen but found that would slow the site down to showcase the main stories.

[stefanok]

Ok, so what i found off hand.

1. Your homepage is very intensive with data and is about 1meg in size. This is one of the contributiing factors to your home page loading slowly.

2. Average loading time is 4.71secs, This is slowish but not a train smash as yet.

3. I see that you are using K2 for your content. K2 does have a tendancy to make a site lag a bit.

4. What are you using to make your SEF UR's? Native or a component?

[stefanok]

Hi Diane

Im a Joomla specialist and own a hosting company. I will have a look now and let you know. Just before i do, are you running any extra components for Joomla?

regards
Stef