Load time problem: is it the cart configuration or my host?

I'm running a website for a friend of mine and having some problems with the site.

It's a Zen Cart storefront and the load time is causing an issue.

I've optimized everything as much as possible but can't seem to shake the load problem...

I'm wondering , how can I test to see if it's the cart configuration or my host?

One way would be to post a link so we can take a look.

Who's the host?
What version of Zencart?
How many categories?
How many attributes?
How many images, and what are the image file sizes?

Lots of things that can contribute to a slow site (the first question being the most important).

Sorry took so long to reply to this... I got extremly busy at work..

Who's the host?.............................Fatcow Hosting
What version of Zencart?..............As of now 1.3.8a, however I have the new version running on the same server and it's just as slow...
How many categories?..................1 category
How many attributes?....................0 attributes
How many images, and what are the image file sizes?......1 image per product 60 products looking at one it read 3.65KB.,...

I personally believe it's the hosting... I've been dealing with them regarding the issue..... They're content with over 10 seonds of load to load at peak times... normal its between 7 and 8 for me, but I've heard over 10 for even users with fiber connections...

the site is http://WePayTheTaxes.com

I should probobly also note that only 9 products are on 1 page..... and my new question is...

I enabled the parse times display

what are the norms for this???

Parse Time: 3.381 - Number of Queries: 350 - Query Time: 0.189240378723

thats what I'm getting now....

Thanks again

Rob

Not only is that a large number of queries on those pages, but the parse time is very bad.

Suggest you get a proper webhost and install the query caching module as well

~Melanie

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnstime?name=http://wepaythetaxes.com/&type=A&token=24d18067a9d3716a34b2f50619f43014 gives you an A+ on speed.

And websiteoptimization.com gives nothing but congrats or small cautions.

:dontgetit

dbltoe:

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnstime?name=http://wepaythetaxes.com/&type=A&token=24d18067a9d3716a34b2f50619f43014 gives you an A+ on speed.

And websiteoptimization.com gives nothing but congrats or small cautions.

:dontgetit

Yes, but HTML load isn't his issue... is SQL

BTW Google PageSpeed score 88/100 which is not fast, but not poor either.

~Melanie

Hence the search for more info. The site jumps up for me and what I could see didn't match what I was reading.

Look in the footer at the parse times.....

~Melanie

Twas added while I was searching:yes:

loaded within 1 second on my end?... browsing is as fast too?..

Fine here:
Parse Time: 0.744 - Number of Queries: 349 - Query Time: 0.156385026154

I am pulling these

Parse Time: 2.263 - Number of Queries: 349 - Query Time: 0.782110905762

But, your numbers gave me another idea.... See the pings below:

Location Result min. rrt avg. rrt max. rrt IP
Singapore, Singapore: Okay 249.4 264.9 277.4 65.254.248.128
Amsterdam2, Netherlands: Okay 86.0 86.3 86.7 65.254.248.128
Florida, U.S.A.: Packets lost (10%) 40.5 41.0 41.5 65.254.248.128
Amsterdam3, Netherlands: Okay 87.2 87.4 87.7 65.254.248.128
Hong Kong, China: Okay 272.9 273.6 274.7 65.254.248.128
Sydney, Australia: Okay 229.2 231.6 244.9 65.254.248.128
Munchen, Germany: Okay 106.0 106.3 106.9 65.254.248.128
Cologne, Germany: Okay 95.3 95.9 96.4 65.254.248.128
New York, U.S.A.: Okay 10.4 10.5 10.7 65.254.248.128
Stockholm, Sweden: Okay 114.7 115.2 115.9 65.254.248.128
Santa Clara, U.S.A.: Okay 79.8 80.7 83.3 65.254.248.128
Vancouver, Canada: Okay 86.6 87.8 89.4 65.254.248.128
Krakow, Poland: Okay 123.5 123.8 123.9 65.254.248.128
London, United Kingdom: Okay 119.6 121.7 123.3 65.254.248.128
Madrid, Spain: Okay 98.5 98.8 99.4 65.254.248.128
Padova, Italy: Okay 112.9 116.0 128.6 65.254.248.128
Austin, U.S.A.: Okay 43.0 43.3 44.3 65.254.248.128
Amsterdam, Netherlands: Okay 90.5 91.1 92.2 65.254.248.128
Paris, France: Okay 94.3 94.8 95.3 65.254.248.128
Melbourne, Australia: Okay 239.0 239.6 241.5 65.254.248.128
Shanghai, China: Okay 216.1 216.7 217.6 65.254.248.128
Copenhagen, Denmark: Okay 110.4 110.9 112.9 65.254.248.128
Lille, France: Okay 84.7 85.3 86.4 65.254.248.128
San Francisco, U.S.A.: Okay 88.1 88.6 89.0 65.254.248.128
Zurich, Switzerland: Okay 110.1 110.4 110.6 65.254.248.128
Mumbai, India: Okay 269.4 269.7 270.4 65.254.248.128
Chicago, U.S.A.: Okay 38.7 39.2 39.7 65.254.248.128
Johannesburg, South Africa: Okay 282.3 283.1 288.4 65.254.248.128
Nagano, Japan: Okay 193.2 193.4 193.7 65.254.248.128
Haifa, Israel: Okay 153.0 154.4 156.5 65.254.248.128
Auckland, New Zealand: Okay 207.3 209.5 215.5 65.254.248.128
Antwerp, Belgium: Okay 92.3 92.6 92.8 65.254.248.128
Groningen, Netherlands: Okay 96.0 96.5 96.9 65.254.248.128
Moscow, Russia: Okay 154.8 155.2 155.6 65.254.248.128
Dublin, Ireland: Okay 96.4 102.1 107.7 65.254.248.128
Oslo, Norway: Okay 120.2 120.6 121.0 65.254.248.128
Kharkov, Ukraine: Okay 160.0 160.4 164.0 65.254.248.128
Manchester, United Kingdom: Okay 85.3 87.1 100.2 65.254.248.128
Vilnius, Lithuania: Okay 157.3 187.1 238.6 65.254.248.128
Ashburn, U.S.A.: Okay 16.0 24.4 30.0 65.254.248.128
Bucharest, Romania: Okay 133.3 133.9 134.9 65.254.248.128
Bangkok, Thailand: Okay 318.5 318.9 319.1 65.254.248.128
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Okay 275.1 275.5 277.1 65.254.248.128
Jakarta, Indonesia: Okay 272.9 279.0 290.7 65.254.248.128
Cape Town, South Africa: Okay 232.0 232.5 233.0 65.254.248.128

just installed the query cache ... it reduced it by 1 ....... hmmmm

I'm getting the feeling it's loading fast for everyone else am I right?....

On my end it takes a pretty good bit of time.... atleast enough for me as a consumer to say the heck with it and go to another site..... (thats my consumer mentality showing haha).....

Thanks for all the replies... any other ideas or am I at the best I can get?

Rob

once upon a time...about 1 year ago... i thought my ZC sites were shockingly slow... i huffed and i puffed at my hosts.. blaming them for this slowness and slowly I blamed them for everything else that went wrong in my life!.... but thankfully they realised i was just full of hot air and instead of writing me off, they sat down me down with a mug of warm milk and really helped me resolve the problem..

I did test after test after test for them over weeks and weeks... It turned out to be my home ISP being rather pants at their job.. and they even showed me forums and user groups solely for hosts and other server'y type clever people, showing lots of post from some of the UKs top hosting companies complaining about Virgin Media being poo!

One of the tests I did was trace route test... I have just done one on your site from my home to your site sever.. here are the results... now im not clever but there surely must be someone here who understands this networking jive talk?
( I have omitted some info that might identify my to some nasty people)

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users******>tracert wepaythetax.com

Tracing route to wepaythetax.com [216.194.104.16]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

6 10 ms 11 ms 26 ms leed-bb-1a-as4-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.175.165]

7 28 ms 15 ms 15 ms popl-bb-1b-as1-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253
.185.238]

8 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms popl-bb-1a-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.174.229]

9 29 ms 27 ms 29 ms amst-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105
.175.6]

10 196 ms 158 ms 181 ms rc2ec.il.shawcable.net [195.69.144.148]

11 148 ms 148 ms 149 ms rc1nr-tge0-1-2-0.wp.shawcable.net [66.163.77.130
]

12 154 ms 156 ms 179 ms rc2sc-tge0-15-1-0.wp.shawcable.net [66.163.73.14
6]

13 167 ms 167 ms 171 ms rc1we-tge0-0-0-0.ed.shawcable.net [66.163.77.66]

14 176 ms 171 ms 172 ms ra1ar-ge1-1.ed.shawcable.net [66.163.70.42]

15 169 ms 179 ms 167 ms cat6509-vlan300.edm.tera-byte.com [66.244.192.42
]

16 168 ms 167 ms 167 ms firewall-01.affordable-data-center.com [216.234.
161.143]

17 174 ms 176 ms 176 ms web-01.awp-hosting.com [216.194.104.16]

Trace complete.
:frusty:

my point in this post was, "that even tho my sites seemed slow to me, they were infact fast for other people (not using virgin media)

Check with your webhost regarding the packet loss in your ping. It's a Florida hop, so they will be able to trace the hop and better analyze the packets dropped

-Melanie
Posted via Mobile Device

yea I will do..... as far as my isp ... nothing else is slow... download files in a snap.... surfing is surfing... fast as ever... no issues.... and I do have one of the highest speed ISPs in my area so..... I have no problems....

Again thanks for all the help...

unfortunatly the people we are paying are helping less than the people we don't pay (that'd be you fine people here... truly thanks for all of your help....)....

Rob

rwslippey:

yea I will do..... as far as my isp ... nothing else is slow... download files in a snap.... surfing is surfing... fast as ever... no issues.... and I do have one of the highest speed ISPs in my area so..... I have no problems....

Again thanks for all the help...

unfortunatly the people we are paying are helping less than the people we don't pay (that'd be you fine people here... truly thanks for all of your help....)....

Rob

i had the exact same problem.. everything else i used the web for was fast.. just my two ZC sites were stupidly slow! its why i had such a long testing process withmy hosts... to this day they didnt know why.. they just knew it was with a Virgin Media routing problem, pin-pointed it to the hub in london... it could be any of 100s of reasons...
they gave me this link tho when i my sites was looking slow or even offline.. just so i could be assured it was online and fast for the rest of the world.

www . alertra.com/spotcheck.php

hope you get it resolved!

Yea I just check that.... I hope it's up and atleast half speedy to the us..... after all all of my customers would be us based... for the most part anyways...

Thanks again

Rob

Well fatcow just gave me a lovely up yours gesture.... Since the site doesn't take over 20 seconds to load on their end theirs nothing they can or will do about it.... gee who saw that coming?

Not sure where this is going to lead me... The person I have put this together for has paid significantly in advance for several years of fatcow service... Oh well maybe we can dump it to another server and use fatcow for something else....

Thanks for everyones help once again...

Rob

Oh and PS just curious on what everyone thinks of the site???