site is really slow

Hi guys,
I hired someone to setup a cart for me, and he selected Zen Cart. I am frustrated b/c the site is extremely slow... taking almost 30 seconds at times for the main page to load. Which I'm sure you could all agree, is way too slow. Other pages take anywhere from 9-12 seconds to load. Which is still too slow for my liking.

I informed him about this, and he told me that my pictures were too large and that the page was calling on the database and 20 pages of info, etc. I don't know anything about how it works, so I'm just trying to get answers on why it is so slow. I resized all of the pics (so the browswer didn't have to do that) and it is still slow - really no change in speed at all.

Then he told me that it was godaddy's fault, that I was getting horrible response on the server for my database. I called them and they ran some diagnostic thing on it, and they said it was fine. Godaddy told me that it was the way it was scripted. So, the designer told me that he tested on a different hosting account and it ran very fast. I asked if we should move it to another host, and he told me that he couldn't guarantee a speed increase.

I hate taking no for an answer, because I know there is a solution to the problem... if anyone out there has any ideas, I would appreciate some help. I'm not really sure what to do... I don't want to start completely over, but that is the direction I am leaning towards... if you think you can help and want to check out my site, you can do so at: http://www.mychristianthreads.com

Thanks,
Zac Cole

the solution is to have godaddy either move you to a less congested server,
( this will be a temporary fix ) get a private server from them or move to a host that is designed for ecommerce,

zen cart is mysql intensive, and needs to have resources available to do this,

godaddy is not optomized for this,

also with godaddy you are limited to the things you can run properly,
linkpoint payments will NOT run on godaddy and neither will the ups xml

they refuse to open the required ports to allow these to run,

you can do a search for godaddy speed issues here and will see that this is well documented.

Move to a new host that will transfer the site for you. Less downtime that way. I strongly suggest that you use one of the host in the hosting area of this site.

One of them has even answered your question.

I am not affiliated, nor do I run a hosting company.