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Wordpress Performance: Why My Site Is So Much Faster Than Yours

elliottback.com — People everywhere complain that Wordpress is slow, or that they can ’t survive a digg. They die if they get more than 10,000 visitors a day, their hosting providers ban them for using too many resources, and they cry because they have to purchase expensive hosting plans. If this describes your plight, before you run over to Survive Digg hosting and

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  • klown256, on 10/12/2007, -30/+5If your running a real site instead of just a blog you will have highly modified blog code. My wordpress blog's all run incredibly fast and without any problem whatsoever.
    • Ransomowris, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22This sounds like link-baiting. Digg me down if I'm wrong, but I think it's pretty suspicious.

      Anyways, let's see if it will survive the front page.
    • kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -30/+7I HATE BLOGS WRAPPED IN ADS.

      ***** this, burying as spam.
    • samnetwork, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15If you had AdblockPlus, then...
    • Yez70, on 10/12/2007, -4/+37@kevin45

      You mean like Digg?
      That site has fewer ads than Digg does. I guess people are supposed to run all their websites and blogs for free, just for you?

      If you don't like the ads, get AdBlock, don't make us listen to you whine - because we hate whiners like you even more.
    • masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21@kevin45:

      There are two Google AdSense ads on that site. Digg has more ads, and they're picture ads, too.
    • kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4"If you had AdblockPlus, then"

      ?? Shouldn't excuse people like this that merely try to get people to their site in order to generate ad revenue. If they had CONTENT to read in the first place it wouldn't matter so much to lure people in.

      The only purpose is to get views and clicks from an article thats been copied and pastied multiple times and direct them to survive digg.

      Digg isn't a blog and has content (posts and source articles- sometimes) out the ying yang, so don't compare the two.
    • kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2double submit nm
    • MtnXfreerider, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2my godaddy hosting is fine... but they have a limit of connections at once.. so yes digg kills it in that sense.. but all poeple have to do is refresh the page.. and its $10 a month for 2TB and 200GB
    • MtnXfreerider, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3I have a Pentium 4 with 1M L1 cache, 1 GB of RAM, a 160GB SATA2 drive, and 100MB/s ethernet.


      umm duh... anyone running that kind of server can handle digg


      Its sites that already get a lot of traffic.. unlike yours.. that are already somewhat stressed and then have digg come down on them.. yes those die even with big server power.
    • fourcylthrill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Why would anyone run to Survive Digg? They've gotten the digg effect on multiple occasions.
    • smackhero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@kevin45:
      the linked blog post is composed of entirely original content, and rather informative content at that. it's not a copy-n-pasted article from another site, and it doesn't even endorse the one commercial site linked to in the post (can you read?). how is the author trying to "lure" people in other than by posting interesting content? his post is actually a good example of the kind of user-generated content people should be submitting to digg, rather than the myriad of useless blog spam and overt online ads that often get submitted instead. did you even bother to look at the page at all? you need to go take your meds or something because the linked blog is the exact opposite of what you claim it to be.

      @MtnXfreerider:
      you clearly don't know anything about running your own web server. the specs for his sever aren't impressive at all for a modern dedicated server. most professional web hosts use about 4 times that amount of RAM and dual xeons or dual core opterons. the author gives a very detailed overview of how to optimize MySQL, PHP, and Apache to minimize request processing time, in addition to some tips on network hardware setup. this ought to be done regardless of how powerful your server is or how much traffic you normally get.

      and what makes you think that a site that normally gets no traffic wouldn't be crashed by a sudden spike in traffic because of the digg effect? please stop talking out of your ass as you have no idea what you're talking about. this blog does an excellent job at dispelling the idea that it's impossible for a site running wordpress to handling digg traffic and shows you what can be done on modest hardware to handle large request volume by reducing request processing time. compared to the info he's provided, your comments are useless and utterly stupid (what kind of web admin settles for just making users hit refresh until the page loads?).
    • SavageBlackCat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Burried as inaccurate.
  • pondster, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4good info here
    • SleepJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Here's a better tip:

      Run a site with ***** text-link ads to keep all visitors away.
  • aldudturn, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23Let's see how long it takes to crash his server..
    • daza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Nearly 7 hours in, the server is fine. I navigated a bit through his blog and pages were loading very quickly showing no signs of any strain. I'd say he definitely knows what he's talking about - his blog is running smoothly under a heavy load.
  • Respec7, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Wordpress >*
  • optize, on 10/12/2007, -30/+2Am I the only one that feels this is a pathetic way to advertise http://survivedigg.com/? Who would want to host with a hosting company that's only been open 2 months anyways.
    • gregm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Did you read the story?
    • quickgold192, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21i see what you did there
    • jdavid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11i did not even see that link till you pointed it out, whos the spammer now?
  • turpenine, on 10/12/2007, -21/+4pretty sluggish for me.
    • jjesusfreak01, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15You are rediculous. That is the fastest I think a front page digg site has ever loaded for me.
    • armbar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14"You are rediculous."

      Yeah, why does everyone have to be diculous multiple times these days? Once should be enough for anybody.
  • IanPhillips, on 10/12/2007, -5/+33Any wordpress site that I can open when it is on the front page, gets a digg in my book.
    • Flashman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3My Wordpress site took 30,000 hits in a single day - mostly from Digg - and didn't fall down. I'm on GoDaddy shared hosting, and I digg it.
    • spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5flashman, what plugins do you use? MySQL seems to be the worst bottleneck for WordPress.
    • smackhero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2almost all wordpress errors that people on digg see are due to the mysql server crapping out from the high volume of requests, and in all likelihood if the site were running any other mysql-based CMS the mysql server would still have crashed (just without showing the wordpress logo). so turning on query caching would be the best way to solve this problem other than upgrading the hardware on your mysql server. this addresses 99% of all the wordpress errors that people bitch about since the application itself is written pretty well and is rather efficient. if you really need the added efficiency, you can use the wordpress page caching plugin that he also mentions, but generally script execution is not a problem on most wordpress blogs.

      if you have a decent professional web host though, you don't really have to worry about the mysql server crashing from the digg effect unless your mysql code is written really poorly. a lot of ignorant diggers just have the distorted perception that wordpress causes servers to crash because they don't recognize that most of the wordpress blogs that they visit are running wordpress unless the mysql server happens to crash and the wordpress error page is displayed. i guarantee that if you use wordpress' hosted blog service that you can easily handle digg traffic. personally i use dreamhost, and i know that their shared hosting servers have no probably handling digg traffic either.

      people complaining about wordpress crashing usually haven't used the application themselves and know nothing about running a high volume website. recommending ***** webhosts like godaddy that drop connections whenever usage/traffic peaks is not a viable solution for any serious web developer/admin. the type of admin/developer this page is aimed towards would not be using such a ***** service anyway, as it seems to be geared towards people who pay for co-loc/dedicated hosting or run their own servers.
  • freehunter, on 11/02/2007, -5/+7If you go to the survive digg website and click on features, it has the digg logo on some of the items. Copyright infringement?
    • TheNik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6When they start offering a service people actually want with that name, then it will be copyright infringement. Until then, they are nothing.
  • gmagana, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Reading the page is like talking to a good c++ programmer: He acts like an *****, but the info is good... So you want to get the hell out of there as soon as you can.
  • GTPilot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19i don't think most people want to pay $80 a month for a blog.
    • vann, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You have basically three options:
      1) Use a bottom-end, managed service like Dreamhost.
      2) Use a dedicated server and configure it properly.
      3) Use something like Amazon's EC2.
    • gharding, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I pay $30/mo for an AMD 2000+ which could easily withstand a Digging. And the thing pays for itself with one adsense block.
  • Piggycow, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Just want to see his crash
    • smackhero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i don't see that happening. if you read the article it's pretty obvious he knows what he's doing, even though his server specs aren't particularly impressive.
  • univers3man, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Amazing. It still up, definitely a digg for me. Maybe it is just word press user ignorance.
    • Firehed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Most sites that go down aren't using $80/month hosting service, and probably don't have the WP-Cache plugin installed either. Of course, the latter is free, but sites that are getting dugg frequently are going to be able to afford that kind of service, not the $6/month I'm using. Some day, I'll write something worthwhile and see what happens.
    • smackhero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2a lot of wordpress blogs make the digg frontpage and survive without a hiccup. if you used shared hosting from professional web hosts like dreamhost you won't have a problem even without optimizing for performance. it's not like the problem is specific to wordpress since the wordpress errors that people see 99% of the time are simply from the mysql server going down. you just don't know the site you're looking at is running wordpress unless the mysql does go down and it displays a wordpress error page. wordpress is a free open source blogging application that's quite popular and it doesn't advertise itself so it's hard to tell when a blog is running it. i found it when searching for a free alternative to typepad.

      the tips offered in the blog are actually pretty useful for any web admin/developer, not just those running wordpress. the optimization techniques for php/apache/mysql are pretty simple and very effective aside from writing efficient php code and caching pages/mysql requests.
  • whakojacko, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2wasnt there an article a little while back about a guy who had issues and then switched to survive digg hosting, wrote an article about how to survive the digg effect and then still got owned?
  • duhblow7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16That's actually a good technical write up. I'm surprised there are so many complaints about it.

    He actually has some technical data; instead of just "tweak your SQL server", he actually explains what he tweaked and why. Kudo's to the author for the time spent.
  • RBasil, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7You have to hand it to the guy. First wordpress blog I've seen to survive a front page story so far. Dugg.
    • optize, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1It's been on the front page for about 10 minutes now -- give it time.
    • gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1There have been others, it's just that a large number of them don't survive a digging.
    • Firehed, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It went down awfully quick when the high-res Natalie Portman pics he had were dugg. I'll assume he optimized after the fact.
    • soccerboi00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Now almost 4 hours, I think he completely survived it.
    • timf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There are definitely more Wordpress blogs who managed to stay up after hitting the front page.
    • ecb29, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4When you evil diggers hotlinked the portman pics it went down because you satured my 100mbs (read crappy) link. Each pic was 1.x MB. CPU load didn't hit anything, and once I moved the pics to an image server offsite things were lovely :D
  • Dgenx, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Whats that ping command?
  • masalaguru, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I get more than a million hits a day while my site streams video content.
    And my wordpress install handles this without a hiccup (cant say the same about my bandwidth).
  • Dgenx, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2run: cmd

    ping -t elliottback.com x10

    +1 sec refresh x5
    • spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Discard ICMP. DOS averted.
    • kensavage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Dgenx, why would you want to DOS his site. he wrote us quality content on how to keep a wordpress site up.

      So shut your little grade school bitch mouth.
  • SCARECR0W, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yes, this article is a rehash of things most people should know anyways but there is a ton of good info there and should be heeded if you wish to submit your site to Digg. I've had my site posted (http://toddlambert.com) on Digg several times and I've never gone down either - up to 20k uniques plus more from all the other sites that are digg clones, etc.. I host on 1and1.com and their basic $30 a month plan - just use these tips and you should be fine. If you go down, even after using these, then you need to find another host.

    • spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm using a $2.99/month plan on 1and1 and it's a little slow under zero load, however the uptime is flawless and the quotas are very generous. I find the FTP access excruciating, though, since each file takes about 4 seconds to negotiate. Single files transfer very quickly but things like WordPress take forever to upload (I don't get shell access so I have to untar locally).

      Your load time seems a bit slow as well, considering your minimal theme. However, you don't seem to be using WP-Cache. How would you rate your speed and satisfaction with 1and1? Slow but steady?

      Very nice web design btw. I love that top horizontal bar.
  • pbgswd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4some of you guys are so mean.
  • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Dugg for once again establishing that the PEBKAC as it usually does. People didn't honestly believe it was Wordpress that was at fault for all the crumbling blogs surely.
    • smackhero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1especially when 99% of the time it clearly says that the problem was not being able to establish a connection with the mysql server--so it woulda happened regardless of the CMS being used. the tip for caching mysql queries should help with most of those wordpress blogs and other sites as well.

      people seem to always stop reading right after "wordpress error" and then return to digg to make comments like "OMG! Wordpress is teh sux again!!!!!111"
  • Blainex, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Dude...you will soon find out that your wordpress is soo much slower than my tpying..and my typing is pretty fast...Let's show this boy the Digg Effect
  • concept, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2does wp-cache cache comments as well, or just the post data?

    thanks
  • concept, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I am running wordpress, however, I have not experienced the digg effect yet, I hope I can handle it.
  • marcamillion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2WoW. Front page, still going and still up and fast? Interesting.
  • GotMex, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think the key point is he pays" $80 dollars a month". For $80 bucks I'd hope you can handle a good Digg. How many of the smaller sites that get dugg and die pay anywhere near that?
  • Dgenx, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1cmon guys do 1 sec refreshes and pings.
    • fogster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Why? That's really lame. He's not arguing that his site is impossible to bring down, he's arguing that it can handle a high traffic load. Of course bombarding it with traffic would bring it down. (Although frankly, even my pitiful little 'spare' server could handle the 1 request a second you're proposing.)
  • FakeOutdoorsman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I used to use Elliot's WP-Hashcash plugin until Akismet came along.
  • curlewfish, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/
  • HanSolo69, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"wordpress performance"? talk about an oxymoron.
  • Shabatoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@kevin45

    HAHA! You have been completely buried because you are not welcome on the internet...now get out of here!
  • krynsky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This info is a few days late for me since I use Wordpress for my site and felt the pain after hitting the front page on Sunday. I went down for a little but with the help of my host was able to debug a bad plugin and quickly installed WP-Cache and was back up running fine after that. I think the fact that he is lean on plugins, running on a dedicated server along with his mysql tuning, caching tips and other tweaks make all the difference. I can appreciate his effort.

    He has also developed several plugins of which the Lifestreaming one is the coolest.
  • 11amDesign, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Bookmarked for a rainy day.
  • cliquee, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1will read that article some other time...
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