Does this match what you’re seeing?
- Pages take several seconds to appear
- Speed tests give a poor score
- The site slows down at busy times
Speed problems fall into two groups. Measure to see which one you have.
Step 1: measure
Run a speed test on a real page and note the time to first byte (TTFB) and the page size and number of requests. How to measure website speed properly
If TTFB is high: the server is slow to start the page
- Dynamic pages without caching. Every visit rebuilds the page. Add page caching. What is caching? Page, browser, object and CDN caching explained
- A slow application. One plugin, extension or database query doing too much. WordPress: Why is WordPress slow? How to find and fix the cause.
- Old PHP. Newer versions run the same code faster. How to change the PHP version in DirectAdmin
- Resource limits. Slowdowns at busy moments or 508 errors mean the account is hitting its limits. “508 Resource Limit Is Reached” and slowdowns under load
If TTFB is fine: the browser has too much to download
- Images — the usual culprit. How to optimise images for a faster website
- JavaScript from sliders, page builders, analytics and chat widgets
- Web fonts — several families and weights add up
- Video hosted directly — embed from a video platform instead
If it’s slow only for some people
- Distance. Traxio hosts websites in Montreal, Canada. If many of your visitors are far from it, Cloudflare, the CDN Traxio supports, serves static files from nearer locations. Using Cloudflare with Traxio hosting
- Their network or device.
If it suddenly became slow
Check what changed: a new plugin, an update, a traffic spike or a bot crawling heavily (visible in the access log). Viewing website statistics and logs in DirectAdmin
Fix in order of impact
- Page caching
- Image sizes
- Remove unnecessary plugins and scripts
- Current PHP
- Cloudflare if visitors are far away