Can't figure out why my site is slow.

Hey Zenners,

I read the knowledge base, faq, and searched around a bit in the threads. I can't seem to figure out what is slowing down my website. It seems like there must be a setting saying don't load the website until all of the pages have loaded or something.

I would really appreciate your help.

https://www.SmartMow.com

I'd be talking to my hosting site about what is wrong with the server ...

You have nothing on your site to take up any speed that I can see from a casual glance ...

You can try turning off Google and see if that changes anything ...

Thanks for the quick response!

The Godaddy guy said that the CSS was making the pages wait until all of the objects / pages were loaded.

Is it possible to edit the CSS to have things load better? Would this be worth it?

Should I just byte the bullet and go with a dedicated server?

:blush:

RoboMike:

The Godaddy guy said ...
They say lots of things to pass the buck and get you off the phone so they can get on to another call where they can make a sale.

RoboMike:

Should I just byte the bullet and go with a dedicated server?
Not when you can get better hosting for less cost by choosing someone far more reliable than your current one.

Who do you recommend?

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=infopages&pages_id=10

That's interesting , one of your hosting providers doesn't list zencart: hostmonster

and this one doesn't even load up: camelot

Thanks. We know. Both of those companies have changed things without notice to us. We have been working on followup.

Now ... is this thread about problems on our Zen Cart support site or about your own site?

Sorry, It was because my site is slow.

I don't what the best way to speed it up would be per cost.

After speaking to the godaddy folks again, they said that my site is slow because each page, and item refers back to the domain name.

They said since my site already lives at smartmow.com that links on my website like

<a href="http://smartmow.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=3&chapter=1">Product Details</a></li> 
  ­
  

and making it like

<a href="/index.php?main_page=page&id=3&chapter=1">Product Details</a></li> 
  ­
  

would make it load faster.

How can I make these modifications?

DrByte:

Thanks. We know. Both of those companies have changed things without notice to us. We have been working on followup.

Now ... is this thread about problems on our Zen Cart support site or about your own site?

I apologize about this......
I wasnt aware that you hadnt gotten the information we had sent about a dozen times......

WE just need you to recreate your user account and then you will get a new URl.....

Sorry about the communication error.

You can determine if the problem is on the Hosting side by enabling:

Admin > Configuration > Logging
Display The Page Parse Time

Then look at the bottom of your page and it will show PHP & mySQL load times.
You want to see less than 1 second for both times.

RoboMike:

After speaking to the godaddy folks again, they said that my site is slow because each page, and item refers back to the domain name.
They're throwing you decoys.
Their hosting is crap. You're likely on an sorely-overloaded server that can't keep up because its resources are over-committed.

If you can, get them to tell you how many other accounts are on that same server. I wouldn't be surprised if it numbers at several thousand. Granted, they'd never admit it anyway ... you won't get a straight answer to that question -- mostly because the folks you have to talk to don't even know the answer themselves.

Website Rob made a suggestion above ... doing what he suggests will reveal a bit of info about what's going on. It'll be interesting to see what numbers you come back with.

Additionally, you can try visiting the Admin->Tools->Server Info page in your admin, and report the Uptime and Load Averages info (unless they've got those turned off on the server so they can hide their abysmal performance).

Thanks for helping out.

Here is the information for the parse times as Rob mentioned:

Parse Time: 3.485 - Number of Queries: 48 - Query Time: 0.337624056473

A reverse IP search said i was the only domain on this server, or at least godaddy said there's not as many SSL server domains as the other ones.

Dr Byte's requested information:

Server Up Time: 09:57:44 up 87 days, 1:49, 0 users, load average: 16.18, 17.33, 19.13

What numbers should I be looking for.

Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. :D

RoboMike:

Parse Time: 3.485 - Number of Queries: 48 - Query Time: 0.337624056473
This is an obscene amount of time for those queries.

RoboMike:

A reverse IP search said i was the only domain on this server, or at least godaddy said there's not as many SSL server domains as the other ones.
Your IP is not at all related to how many websites are hosted on the server.... That only represents a dedicated IP, not server... There are probably hundreds of others hosted on the same box as you.

RoboMike:

Server Up Time: 09:57:44 up 87 days, 1:49, 0 users, load average: 16.18, 17.33, 19.13
That load is off the hook too!

RoboMike:

What numbers should I be looking for.

Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. :D

Like this or similar

Server Up Time: 12:44:59 up 188 days, 15:45, 0 users, load average: 0.25, 0.35, 0.44
&

Parse Time: 0.487 - Number of Queries: 113 - Query Time: 0.077897405777

for example.... I pulled these from a live site

~Melanie

RoboMike:

Here is the information for the parse times as Rob mentioned:

Parse Time: 3.485 - Number of Queries: 48 - Query Time: 0.337624056473That's telling you that the database portion is taking only 0.3376 seconds to process all 48 database queries used on the page you took those numbers from ... but that it's taking 3.485 seconds to run the PHP side of it (including the 0.3376 seconds of database time).
This means that the server is overloaded and overcommitted and doesn't have enough resources available to serve your site in a reasonable time.
RoboMike:

Server Up Time: 09:57:44 up 87 days, 1:49, 0 users, load average: 16.18, 17.33, 19.13
Those load average numbers are very high. There are varying opinions on the best values to see, but 1.00 per CPU on the server is seen by some to be ideal. So, if your server has 4 CPUs on it, then a max of 4.00 would be expected. Your server's numbers are more than 4 times that high, demonstrating that it's overtaxed ... ie: trying to do too many things at once.

If you care to study what the load average numbers mean, I'm sure you can find them explained by looking up the topic with your favorite search engine. They are not unique to Zen Cart.

Parse Time: 3.485 - Number of Queries: 48 - Query Time: 0.337624056473
This tells us your site loads slow because it takes a long time to process the PHP side of things.

A reverse IP search said i was the only domain on this server, or at least godaddy said there's not as many SSL server domains as the other ones.
If your Domain was the only one on the Server then you would have a Dedicated Server and be spending $300 - $400 a month for hosting. Presuming that is not true :wink: it would be correct to say you have a Dedicated IP; which one needs if using a Dedicated SSL Cert.

Server Up Time: 09:57:44 up 87 days, 1:49, 0 users, load average: 16.18, 17.33, 19.13
This tells us the Server is overloaded; too many sites on the Server for it to properly accommodate. The last 3 sets of numbers are for every 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. As a Hoster, I would be very uncomfortable with any Server consistently having that high of a load. I know sites on that Server would be slow and Clients would be complaining. I also know if the situation wasn't corrected people would seek Hosting elsewhere.

To my knowledge there are just two ways to solve slow site problems due to an overloaded Server.

1. The Hoster makes changes to the Server.
2. The Client finds a new Hoster.

As you have no control over the first, the second may be your best option.

Parse Time: 26.278 - Number of Queries: 714 - Query Time: 1.7576732570038

GoDaddyhosting account.

Any recommendations as to who I should change to as I can't afford dedicated hosting at present.

I've seen the Zen Cart approved hosts but have also read of problems with these guys?

You will read about problems with everyone under the sun ...

The happy folks are not talking ... just the unhappy ones ...

A dedicated server is awfully extreme unless you have 10000s of 1000s of Products and Categories and Attributes and Customers ...

Finding a good host can take a bit of time ... I am partial to those listed on our Certified Hosts ... :smile: