• Skip to main content
  • Skip to forum navigation

StudioPress

  • Shop for Themes
  • My StudioPress

Forum navigation

  • Home
  • General Genesis Discussions
  • StudioPress Themes
  • Genesis Blocks
    • Genesis Blocks
    • Genesis Custom Blocks
  • Retired Themes
  • FAQs
  • Forum Rules
  • Internationalization and Translations
  • Forum Bugs and Suggestions
  • Forum Log In

Are You Using The WordPress Block Editor?

Genesis now offers plugins that help you build better sites faster with the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg). Try the feature-rich free versions of each plugin for yourself!

Genesis Blocks Genesis Custom Blocks

WP / Genesis is Slow

Welcome!

These forums are for general discussion on WordPress and Genesis. Official support for StudioPress themes is offered exclusively at My StudioPress. Responses in this forum are not guaranteed. Please note that this forum will require a new username, separate from the one used for My.StudioPress.

Log In
Register Lost Password

Community Forums › Forums › Archived Forums › General Discussion › WP / Genesis is Slow

This topic is: resolved

Tagged: slow site

  • This topic has 38 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 11 months ago by bionary.
Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 39 total)
1 2 →
  • Author
    Posts
  • June 16, 2014 at 12:30 pm #110012
    bionary
    Member

    This is my first word press / genesis site and the first negative thing (There are many positives btw) that I must resolve is the load time of the website. I understand that wp is working with hundreds of files/scripts to output the site but man it's slow. It was slow on my local test machine and it's unacceptably slow on my production server. I'm used to custom sites I used to build from scratch that load in under a second from server and instantly on local environment. Sometimes I'm waiting 20 seconds to load a single page from my production server! ouch!

    What are some steps I can take to fix this deal breaker of a problem.

    http://helloartsy.com
    June 16, 2014 at 1:33 pm #110025
    Brad Dalton
    Participant

    Find a good host.

    All the sites i move to Genesis load so much faster but cheap hosting is always a problem.


    Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

    June 16, 2014 at 2:13 pm #110035
    bionary
    Member

    I knew that would be a recommendation however WordPress runs noticeably slower locally too so I don't completely buy it. As a developer I always have my cache shut off but still... The lag is ridiculous. Are there other solutions that anyone is familiar with? I've heard of wp caching plugins. Anybody? I'm really trying to like WordPress but it's a hog:)

    June 16, 2014 at 2:22 pm #110036
    gregg
    Member

    Maybe you have a problem with your computer or internet connection. http://helloartsy.com loads very quickly for me.

    June 16, 2014 at 2:38 pm #110038
    Summer
    Member

    Same here. I also ran a test of helloartsy.com at Pingdom, and it says the site loads in 3 seconds:

    http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/c6pWD/helloartsy.com

    Maybe there's a problem on your computer, or your local network? Oh, and avoid caching plugins if at all possible. They cause more problems than they resolve, IMO, and to me, their continued use seems to be a legacy carryover from back when cheap hosting was skimpy on resources, something as a whole they don't seem to do anymore.


    WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
    Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

    June 16, 2014 at 3:39 pm #110046
    bionary
    Member

    I guess you guys are right...what's really weird is I tried the site twice from two different locations, one being a mobile but wifi connected device and in both occasions the site took 20+ seconds to load. But alas I checked again now and everything seems to load quicker...I think I just got unlucky for those two tests. weird. WP is definitely not as fast as a custom site but 3 seconds is acceptable I suppose. I was hoping for <1 second but I don't feel like paying more for hosting so it'll have to do.

    Thank you!

    June 16, 2014 at 6:12 pm #110071
    nunotmp
    Member

    http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/ePmkpE/http://helloartsy.com/

    Optimizing a site is a very important step that a lot of people skip but it does look like the site is loading slow not because of the files but because of the connection(host).


    Genesis Child Themes – Follow Me

    June 16, 2014 at 8:18 pm #110093
    bionary
    Member

    @nunotmp interesting resource, thanks.
    I put in a few more sites I have running off the same exact server and they result in page loads around 2.5 - 4.5 secs while the wordpress site records a load time of 20-30 seconds according to the tools.pingdom.com site.

    June 16, 2014 at 11:36 pm #110117
    gregg
    Member

    You're focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is not wordpress. When I clicked on your site a while ago it was zippity quick. I clicked around and all the pages loaded fast. I went back later and it took forever to connect and load. It could be mysql problems or many other things. But it's not that wordpress is inherently slow.

    June 16, 2014 at 11:50 pm #110122
    Summer
    Member

    @bionary, are you hosting your website on GoDaddy? If so, that's the beginning, middle and end of your problems.

    GoDaddy hosting is atrocious for any dynamic site (meaning anything that runs off a database like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and a handful of other CMS apps). It's fine for Dreamweaver-style HTML only sites, but for anything else, they suck poison toads, and everyone knows it 🙂

    I've had clients with the same problems... their sites will load fine for a while, then for a few hours here and there, the database will get so sluggish it feels like it's on dialup speeds. Their POP emails will also suddenly stop working.

    Do yourself a favor, switch to real hosting, because GoDaddy doesn't fit the bill. It bugs me that they bought Media Temple... I have some clients there, and I'm hoping they don't mess with the MT infrastructure because that means moving a bunch of sites I thought would be stable.


    WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
    Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

    June 17, 2014 at 6:20 am #110156
    bionary
    Member

    @Summer
    I do have godaddy as a matter of fact. but the other sites that I tested that load faster are mostly dynamic php/mysql sites as well that I built from scratch over the years with my own MVC architecture. They do however, perform far fewer tasks then wordpress of course so they are much leaner in size and script calling. I'm sure wordpress hits the database many times before it outputs the html etc. in comparison.

    Without getting into an affiliate marketing rub down do you guys have any experience/recommendations for a hosting solution that is acceptable for wordpress?

    June 17, 2014 at 8:16 am #110167
    gregg
    Member

    Since you're already on Godaddy why don't you switch to their managed wordpress plan. Right now it's only $1/month. On Godaddy's managed wordpress plan the servers are suposedly optimized to run wordpress, and ONLY wordpress.

    June 17, 2014 at 8:34 am #110173
    bionary
    Member

    Since you’re already on Godaddy why don’t you switch to their managed wordpress plan.

    Sounds like a sham to me but maybe worth a look. But the site is not installed through any of their one-click installation stuff. It was installed by me, database and all. Not sure if that matters.

    June 17, 2014 at 11:34 am #110199
    Summer
    Member

    @bionary, yes it's likely a hand-rolled mysql solution would be be far less database intensive than something like WordPress or Drupal, so you would get a very different profile of resource usage.

    The guys at WP Site Care did an evaluation of WordPress hosts earlier this year, you might start with their list and do some digging of your own to see if any of them might suit your needs.

    http://www.wpsitecare.com/performance-of-7-top-wordpress-hosting-companies-compared/

    I currently use Hostgator, but I was with them before folks started having issues with them after EIG took over management. And I used to recommend Media Temple to clients of mine who wanted a little more (their dv plans), but now I'm in a wait-and-see mode to see what being bought by GoDaddy does to them.


    WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
    Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

    June 17, 2014 at 4:45 pm #110280
    bionary
    Member

    @Summer

    that looks like a good comparison of hosting. Thanks.

    June 18, 2014 at 5:24 pm #110443
    bionary
    Member

    So I got so aggravated with slowDaddy thanks to their timing out and all kinds of slow issues that persisted last night that I just up and moved the site to siteGround hosting. So far it's way faster, hopefully it stays reliable. The godaddy server wasn't even usable to be honest.

    Is there anything I can do to optimize wordpress for even more speed? for example: I used to place gzip directives in .htaccess files? Does wp do this automatically prior to export?

    what do you guys do to speed up your wp sites?

    Thank you

    June 18, 2014 at 5:43 pm #110444
    Brad Dalton
    Participant

    Managed hosting has been the best move i ever made for site speed.

    Managed server side caching is also more effective than plugins.


    Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

    June 18, 2014 at 6:26 pm #110451
    bionary
    Member

    @braddalton

    Managed hosting has been the best move i ever made for site speed.

    Is this the same as a dedicated server or virtual dedicated server?

    Managed server side caching is also more effective than plugins.

    Is that something that can be set up with .htaccess? If so can you provide an example?

    Thank you.

    June 18, 2014 at 6:56 pm #110454
    Brad Dalton
    Participant

    1. Can be any type of server as long as its managed for speed.
    1. No. Its managed by full time staff at the hosting provider.


    Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

    June 18, 2014 at 7:06 pm #110455
    bionary
    Member

    I don't think I'm ready for all that, sounds expensive and complicated.

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 39 total)
1 2 →
  • The forum ‘General Discussion’ is closed to new topics and replies.

CTA

Ready to get started? Create a site or shop for themes.

Create a site with WP EngineShop for Themes

Footer

StudioPress

© 2025 WPEngine, Inc.

Products
  • Create a Site with WP Engine
  • Shop for Themes
  • Theme Features
  • Get Started
  • Showcase
Company
  • Brand Assets
  • Terms of Service
  • Accptable Usse Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Refund Policy
  • Contact Us
Community
  • Find Developers
  • Forums
  • Facebook Group
  • #GenesisWP
  • Showcase
Resources
  • StudioPress Blog
  • Help & Documentation
  • FAQs
  • Code Snippets
  • Affiliates
Connect
  • StudioPress Live
  • StudioPress FM
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Dribbble