My WordPress photo blog is slow

Ced

Hello,

I have a Wordpress photo blog I maintain for few years now, but it recently became very very slow.
Does anyone know a way to identify where it comes from ?
Or any advise on how to keep a photo blog fast ?

I like to keep photos high resolution with a size around 600k, I don't know if that is too much.

What I don't get is that all pages are slow, even the ones that were fast in the past. My provider is Gandi I don't think it comes from it, certainly some mistakes on my side.

Link is www.tatouata.fr if someone with patience wants to have a look and see what could be wrong it would help me.

Neil vN

It could be a variety of things - the most likely being your service provider. 

I have no idea how one would test for that though?

It could be the WP theme you are using. 

Try switching temporarily to another basic theme and check the speed then?

You could also have too many plug-ins running on your site.

http://wptavern.com/determining-which-plugins-are-slowing-your-site-down

One plug-in that actually helps, is WP Cache - which reduces download times:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/

There are numerous articles out there with help on fixing slow WP sites: 

http://www.lyntonweb.com/inbound-marketing-blog/5-reasons-why-your-wordpress-website-is-so-damn-slow

(They also mention slow hosts / too many plugins / lack of caching. 

http://www.sparringmind.com/speed-up-wordpress/

http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/11/wordpress-site-runs-slow-fixes.html ;

Ced

Thanks for all the material! I Will have a look at all this and update if I find something, hope I don't have to re-build from scratch
I also contacted my provider hope they will help.

Purcell

I ran some tests here from Cape Town, SA.

When I ping your site, it resolves to gpaas8.dc0.gandi.net [217.70.180.138].  No problem there.

I get ping response times of about 160ms, which is faster than for neilvn.com (240ms), but I don't have speed issues with this site.  So no problem there.

When I do a tracert, then I see problems:

  1    34 ms     2 ms    <1 ms  10.8.111.1

  2    <1 ms     3 ms    <1 ms  10.0.1.177

  3     1 ms    <1 ms     1 ms  10.0.0.1

  4     1 ms    <1 ms     3 ms  196.34.250.17

  5     3 ms     3 ms     1 ms  196.26.90.200

  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.

  7     3 ms     4 ms     5 ms  css2-ctn-gi1-0-108.ip.isnet.net [168.209.28.41]

  8    14 ms     2 ms     5 ms  mi-za-cpt-p8-te0-0-0-0.ip.isnet.net [168.209.6.13]

  9     2 ms     2 ms     2 ms  mi-za-cpt-p7-te0-7-0-0.ip.isnet.net [168.209.2.12]

 10   164 ms   163 ms   168 ms  core1b-dock-ge-0-4-2-2.ip.isnet.net [168.209.201.13]

 11   162 ms   162 ms   179 ms  linx.lon.gandi.net [195.66.225.20]

 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 13   159 ms   158 ms   164 ms  gpaas8.dc0.gandi.net [217.70.180.138]

So there seems to be 2 bottle-necks.  One here in CT, and one just before your service provider.

Ced

Does it point to something specific. I don't know how to read these lines

Purcell

If you look at lines 11-13 then it's definitely something wrong at Gandi.

Lines 5-7 also indicate a problem, but that's on the Cape Town side so I think that's out of your control.

Ced

Found it !! it was one of the plugin as Neil suggested.

It was a useless one ...will be more careful with that now adding only essential ones.

me happy!

Neil vN

Which plugin? 

Ced

I deleted it right after I discovered it was this one... don't remember the exact name but it was an IP address blocker

Ced

something like IP country block

Purcell

Okay, then it definitely seems to be the plug-in, because the site loads fine on my side now, although I still get the same ping and tracert stats.

Ced

Yep, all fine, thanks for checking on your side.

cakencamera

How many plugins are you running? You could try turning them all off then turn the back on one by one? I would recommend having w3 total cache as Neil suggests, how many images are on your site? There are plugins that will reduce the file size, scripts to footer is another good plugin as is leverage browser caching ninja. It could be your hosting company? I made the mistake of using an american hosting company but I'm in the UK so obviously there was a bit of distance to travel, since me using a UK based hosting service my site is a lot faster. 

If your not technically minded might I suggest having a look on Odesk and hiring somebody to speed your sight up, keep away from Pakistani's and go for a Russian, I can recommend a couple if you need.