This morning I noticed that my website (dougdraws.com) was loading really slow in my Chrome browser. I'd called my host to see if they were doing any maintenance and the tech reported that my site was loading fine for him. So then I thought it was Chrome.

 

I downloaded and installed Firefox and then the Firebug extension and followed this tutorial here to diagnose what was taking so long to load on my site.

 

According to the status bar at the bottom of the Net tab in Firebug it took 16.47s to 24.34s to load. Not sure what that means, but it doesn't sound good.

 

It wasn't slow like this at all until this morning. I don't know what has changed. I haven't added any new plugins or anything. Checking the "All" tab in the Net window of Firebug I could see a lot of the images were taking a while to load, along with some bizarre things. Like a small 11x11 GIF was taking 13.8 seconds! That seems a little ridiculous.

 

I don't know what's going on with my site, but if anyone can offer any suggestions, tips, or advice I'd sure appreciate it.

 

Thank you.

Depending on the access you have to your server I would recommend:

 

• enabling keep-alives
  
• compressing text
  
• compressing images
  
• caching static content
  
• merging js and css files
  
• using a cdn
  
• using cookies properly
  
• turning off etags
  

 

Just doing anything you can to minimise server requests.

 

 

Though I dont see any of the extremely poor performance issues you do, it's still pretty slow.

I would take a backup of the site and play around with it. removing elements(typekit, css, images) one by one and see if its making any difference.

 

Hope it turns out fine!

I spoke to my host again and got the same response - everything if fine on our end. The tech was even checking out my site in different browsers at his end and reported it was loading pretty fast. Now that I'm checking it myself it seems faster again. I installed the following snippet of code in my footer.php file right before the closing </body> tag:

 

<!– <?php echo get_num_queries(); ?> queries. <?php timer_stop(1); ?> seconds. –>

 

After this I refreshed the page with Ctrl+F5 and then viewed the source...

 

<!- 36 queries. 0.540 seconds. ->

 

That seems a lot faster. Still I've realized that I need to cut down on the images used on my site. I need to display my work so I do need to have images for that, but I can also cut down on all the other images. I've come to the conclusion that I need to find a better theme. I can't stand the one I have now (no theme should need over twenty PHP files).

 

So I'm looking for a better alternative. I may need to change the whole look of my site and opt for fewer large images to the design. I've never been very good at optimization. I know that sounds bad for a designer, lol.

 

I'd love to know how Nick La of WebDesignerWall does his images. His site only takes about 2 seconds to load.

Ok gang, I installed the WP-Super-Cache plugin. Click around the site and let me know if this has improved the speed at all: http://dougdraws.com/

Ok gang, I installed the WP-Super-Cache plugin. Click around the site and let me know if this has improved the speed at all: http://dougdraws.com/

 

You've still got a lot of work to do - http://www.webpagetest.org/result/100418_612bcbe7a8d87e17a5fbe2a6f55131e2/ - that is way too many requests for a start.

You've still got a lot of work to do - http://www.webpagetest.org/result/100418_612bcbe7a8d87e17a5fbe2a6f55131e2/ - that is way too many requests for a start.

 

Ok, so what the heck am I looking at on that page you linked to?

I went through and compressed some images. I needed the transparency of the header image so I tried a PNG compression trick - Posterization. I don't know if it made it any smaller, but it seems to load faster. There's really no way to get that image any smaller, unless someone has some suggestions or tutorials on it.

 

Anyway, I also reduced the file sizes on the featured images, saved them as JPEGs instead of PNGs. Reduced most of them by well over half. Got some pixelization happening now, but at least their smaller. I found a couple optimizers - pngcrush and OptiPNG - but I can't make heads or tails out of how to use them.

Your main problem is that each visit is making close to 100 requests on your server. By combining css and javascript, using css sprites, and getting rid of unnecessary images there's no reason you can't cut that to less than half.

Your main problem is that each visit is making close to 100 requests on your server. By combining css and javascript, using css sprites, and getting rid of unnecessary images there's no reason you can't cut that to less than half.

 

Sounds good. Could you explain how to do what you just said?

 

And according to my query stats it's only making 36 queries. and taking 1.225 seconds. to load. What are you using to measure this with?

Thank you everyone for your input. I have a made a rather bold decision. I have decided to “slim down” my website. I've been test driving some new themes now. WooThemes has this neat area where you can log into an actual WP dashboard and upload their themes to test them out. Pretty cool. My plan: no more big graphics, blog, or tutorials – focusing just on my artwork, front and center – period.

 

Ok, maybe a nice subscribe box…..