Must Go Faster
I used a proxy server to simulate the page load speed of a first time visitor and the site was very sloooow. So slow that we are considering changing some things around. Right now, we’re undecided on what the best course of action should be. We may end up doing nothing; but we would like to make the site faster. What do you think we should do? Would you rather have fewer graphics and a faster site? Or can you live with the speed and prefer that we don’t change the content. Some ideas we are considering include:
- Reduce the number of pictures (either per post or by having few posts which have photos).
- Make the pictures smaller. The size of the click-thrus might be the same or we might have to resize those too.
- Reduce the number of posts available on the front page from 10 to 5.
- Take older graphics and videos off-line. (I’m not sure how much this would save.)
- “Fold” the bottom part of photo posts so that fewer graphics are show on the main page. The entire post would be viewable via a JavaScript-based “more” capability.
- Change hosts. Does anyone know a cheap host that doesn’t mind NSFW content?
Please let us know which option you would prefer. And if you’ve got any other ideas, we’d love to hear them. All opinions and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
decrease the picture size – at least try that first.
My humble sugestion would be to archive after 5 posts and to use a smaller “tease” photo with the big beautiful one linked to it. Boston lost as did the Panthers tonight. Shish I cant catch a break.
You might want to explore Dreamhost http://www.dreamhost.com/ I’ve heard great stuff bout them, I can’t personally say myself, am presently using GoDaddy Hosting, but am seriously pondering a switch when the time comes. Can’t hurt to check em out, like GD, they offer simple install of a number of apps, I gather adult content isn’t a prob.
I have noticed your Blog is quite a bit slower than it used to be, but I like it just the way it is, though it would be just as readable with slightly smaller pics. Since I read it as soon as it is updated, archiving after five posts would be okay by me, too, but that’s a personal view.
Instead of embedding your pics into your blog, you might consider instead setting them up on another site, like perhaps flickr, and then just posting a link in your blog to that site. You then won’t have the overload directly within your blog and your readers can then look at your current pics as well as all previously posted ones – a bonus. Don’t try to make your blog do everything if you can instead outsource some of the more burdensome tasks.
All the ideas above are good. My two cents is about a new host. I used Dot5 hosting to play the videos on my sidebar because Blogspot couldn’t seem to handle it. Obviously they didn’t mind the content. The address is:
http://members.dot5hosting.com/dot5/
On another note, as a former resident of Ohio, I hope you two are staying warm (I don’t think you ever had problems with that)
Whatever you choose I’ll always consider it worth the wait.
Rage: Before we do anything permanent, we’re going to see if the speed picks up when we don’t have as many pictures on the main page. We should have more no-photo posts anyway. It used to not be that way; but we haven’t been posting as much as we used to.
Carolina Jim and Wife: That something that quick to do and easy to revert if we change our mind. We’re leaving things as is while we do some performance testing; but will probably make the change in the next day or two. At least you were still in football season. The Bengals were out of contention well before the season ended, and the Buckeyes … I don’t even want to think about Monday.
Dave Dunlop: I’ve have mixed thoughts about Dreamhost. I know just as many people that love it as hate it. Plus they tend to run out of date versions of software. And adult content is technically against their TOS. People do it; but only by are flying under the radar.
Alfie: I’d really like to keep one week’s worth of posts. That seems to be a reasonable compromise. But that’s not an option for WordPress. Perhaps I can find a plug-in.
Rob: Te problem with Flickr is that everyone would have to be signed in and verified as an adult or they couldn’t see them since couldn’t make them. I would get banned very quickly if I made them public. And we both really like our blog being self contained. We’ve never had the best experiences with free services.
Dirty Debbie: I looked into Dot5 but adult content is against their TOS (the same as Dreamhost). I’m reluctant to switch hosts because I don’t have enough bandwidth and hope that I don’t use enough bandwidth to attract any attention. Especially since if they cancel you for a Terms Of Service violation they keep your money. Glad that you think we are worth the wait. And we have been keeping very warm these past few days.
#2. That’s what I do. I reduce all the picture sizes on the front page. The Gimp is really good for that.
Kate: I’ve got the full size originals so nothing would be lost; but it was such a nuisance to edit the pictures the first time we want to avoid changes to content if possible. Over the years, we’ve got photographs in many locations so making a backup of the photos at the current resolution might be a bigger PIA than writing some script to do something cool programmatically.