You have attempted to load your site and it appears to be running slow. Now what? We understand this can be frustrating. There are a few things to consider when trying to determine what could possibly be making your site run slow. We are going to address those possibilities here to help you troubleshoot the issue.
What is "slow?" We recognize that this is relative concept and you may consider one speed to be slow while another customer may be completely fine with that exact speed. Since it is impossible to determine what is slow for everyone, it may be more beneficial to help you fine tune your site to be as fast as it can be.
Connectivity
Connectivity issues often cause sites to appear slow when they may not actually be running slow at all. We have a resource that we suggest to help you determine if there is an issue with your connectivity or if there is another issue.
Internet Supervision
Internet Supervision is a free website testing tool. You simply enter your website URL into the provided field and select 'Check URL'. It will then connect to your site from various places all over the world so you can see if it is your connectivity or if it is something more.
Sample Results Page: (click on image to view larger image)
If your site connects to other locations around the world in a timely manner, then it is most likely your connection or your route to our servers. In either case you would need to contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP); however, before you do, we would like to help you give them more specifics on the issue.
TraceRoute & PingPlotter
If you would like us to help you find the exact location that is causing your site to appear slow, submit a ticket and include your trace route. We suggest you use PingPlotter to send your trace route. Our Linux Administrators will then review the route, determine exactly where the the lag is coming from and let you know where to point your ISP.
Site Design
Site design is one of the biggest culprits behind a site running slow. Since we are not a web design company, our expertise here is limited; however, we can suggest a resource to help you find out how your site measures up to average speeds.
GTmetrix
We suggest you use a tool called GTmetrix. Simply enter your site URL into theAnalyze Performance of field and select Go! GTmetrix will then analyze your site and give you a grade for general page speed and Yahoo!'s YSlow tool. You can also see your exact page load time.
You can also get more details on exactly why you received the grade you received for both page speed and YSlow, as well as a timeline of how long it took each aspect of the page to load and when in your history was your best load time.
Using this tool, you should easily be able to optimize your site to be as fast as possible. GTmetrix will also show you any site flaws so you can adjust your coding and condense large files that are causing slow speeds.
Server is Running Slow
Our goal is to have every server running perfectly; however, sometimes a server may run slower than normal due to a variety of reasons. You can rest assure we are aware of all of them and are constantly monitoring to make sure your server is running at its optimal level at all times.
