knoob question about shared hosting

[sublimedrive]

Hi

I'm a noob when it comes to hosting and domains other than using them for websites.

I have a domain on shared hosting for almost 2 years now. Haven't noticed too much of a problem with my website load time and browsing speed. Until recently I get occasional slow periods.

Had problems with shared server hackers a few times, that sucked too but I fixed it all three times so far.

Can anyone tell me if these slow lagging periods on my website is because of being on a shared server?

Or any better ideas, I am using wordpress up to date and my site is fine sometimes but not so much lately.

How much better is dedicated rather than shared? Also if someone knows a good reliable method of hosting a domain that might cure my lagging pages.

The site gets only 300 or so UV's a day is that too much for the shared servers or are other sites on my shared ip causing this bog down once in a while?

Cheers!

Shaun

 

[Rexibit]

Depending on the shared host's network, your site's code efficiency, and what kind of sites other people on your shared server are running, you can easily get 5k - 10k+ visitors a day to your site before needing to switch.

I was doing 10k+ visitors a day on a set of websites I had running off the same shared hosting account without any major latencies.

At 300UV's a day, you shouldn't be having issues.

Wordpress can be a RAM hog. Look into changing how your sitemap is creating itself if you're using that plugin. Also look into WP Super Cache and other plugins like that designed to speed up your pages.

It might also be people on the same server as you eating up your resources. If you're running with CPanel and are on a shared host like Bluehost, consider throttling your site.

 

[kblessinggr]

Hi

I'm a noob when it comes to hosting and domains other than using them for websites.

No shame in that.

I have a domain on shared hosting for almost 2 years now. Haven't noticed too much of a problem with my website load time and browsing speed. Until recently I get occasional slow periods.

Had problems with shared server hackers a few times, that sucked too but I fixed it all three times so far.

Well the basis premises of a shared account is that you are sharing resources with everyone else on the same server/node that you're on. So its not uncommon for slow periods when one of your neighbors is hitting up resources pretty hard.

Can anyone tell me if these slow lagging periods on my website is because of being on a shared server?

It's a good possibility unless your hosting provider gives you a different answer (like server being hit by DDOS attack or something).

Or any better ideas, I am using wordpress up to date and my site is fine sometimes but not so much lately.

Wordpress is such a memory hog that you want to make sure you use caching (such as wp-super-cache or W3-Total-Cache) especially if on resource restrictive environment. For example using the precaching feature of wp-super-cache and correctly setting up .htaccess to serve off the gzipped cached files can do wonders for your site load.

How much better is dedicated rather than shared? Also if someone knows a good reliable method of hosting a domain that might cure my lagging pages.

A ton better, however you may not even need a dedicated server for your need. The next step up would be a virtual private server (basically your own server, virtualized on a physical server where you are given your own slice of cpu, memory and storage resources thats not shared with others).

I provide managed VPS accounts, buddy of mine (Subigo) provides unmanaged VPS accounts (at 10/month, 10 more if you want DirectAdmin).

The site gets only 300 or so UV's a day is that too much for the shared servers or are other sites on my shared ip causing this bog down once in a while?

Cheers!

Shaun

Well with only that much, you might consider switching shared host to someone who doesn't oversell their nodes quite that much, for example my Shared servers still have far less than the 50-75 user cap (most shared providers throw a couple hundred if not thousand users on their nodes), and its 39.99/year.

*shameless plug end*

 

[cpt2010]

check all your plugins, some of my sites were lagging badly and it was due to a plugin i had installed, i de-activiated them all then activated them one by one and found which one was causing the problem.

I believe it was the seo links plugin, could be this its worth a shot.

 

[l3msip]

As mentioned, it could be a number of things, one of the major drawbacks of shared hosting being your inability to diagnose the issue completely.

Do as suggested with caching and check out any newly installed plugins.
If you want that bit more control, a small VPS should be able to handle your tiny volume quite well, but i would personally stick with shared.

Something that many people dont mention about small VPS/dedi is the chance of considerable decrease in site performance.

Sure you get your own dedicated slice of resources, but at the cheaper end, they are probably WAY less than MAXIMUM resources available from your shared account.

If you dont find any issues with your site, and the performance continues to suck, try another shared host. There a many decent ones out there and migrating a wordpress site is pretty painless.

 

[sublimedrive]

Thanks a lot! Some very helpful insight on this.

I am using the wp-super cache plugin and I am pretty sure I set it up right but I am going to check over it all again to make sure.

I haven't changed to any new plugins recently so probably not the cause. I'm leaning towards the shared hosting due to other sites bogging things down occasionally.

I might just figure out how to run my own VPS. If not I might take you up on your service kblessinggr and thanks for all the suggestions to my problem too.

I really didn't think my whopping 300uv could have been much of an issue lol.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

Shaun