Is Your Web Host Throttling Your Blog?
If your blog is experiencing a slowdown, it could be because your host has throttled it. Here’s my story.
I’d noticed that it was taking a little bit longer to access my blog. I had also noticed that my weekly WebCEO report showed that my site was woefully slow. I had a look in my Wordpress dashboard and decided I needed more help, so I opened a support ticket with my host – Bluehost.
My host then said: “I see that your website is using too much in CPU resources for our shared hosting environment.” I was shocked. My site is hardly Problogger or Mashable. It’s just a writing blog with a decent, though not exorbitant, amount of traffic. So what had changed? The Bluehost tech support guys talked me through some of the options.
Reducing CPU Load
1. The first suggestions was to reduce running processes which I should have been able to find in Cpanel via a button under the CPU throttling section. I opened it and found nothing running. Zero. Zilch.
2. The next suggestion was to disable plug-ins in WordPress. I’d already done that some time back and had pared down to the essentials, but I logged into my dashboard and checked that I didn’t have anything particularly intensive enabled. I disabled a couple I had recently installed just in case. Everything was up to date, too, which removed another possible flag.
3. The next step was to check for slow mySQL queries. Here are the instructions Bluehost provided:
Log into your cpanel.
# Click on phpMyAdmin.
# On the left will be a list of your databases. Select the one you want to repair/optimize.
# This will load all of the tables in your database into the right side. At the bottom of this list, there is a link called “Check All”. Click that.
# Just to the right of the check all link there is a drop down menu that says “With Selected.” Click on that, and choose “repair”.
# You should get a page that will list all the tables, with “OK” listed next to them. When this is done, look up to the top of the page, and click on the “Structure” tab.
# This will take you back to the page you saw on step 4.
# Click “Check All” again, and then choose “Optimize” in the drop down menu.
I completed that and checked back next day to see what difference it had made. It had reduced the amount of throttling but my site was still being slowed down for nearly 3 hours in every 24 – not good enough.
Other Options
As it turned out, I’d exhausted the tech support options and Bluehost suggested that either I get professional help or get a VPS or dedicated hosting from another host. With more than a year to run on my current hosting contract, I’m not ready to do that yet, so I did some more digging around and found that someone else had experienced the same problem.
Finding Help
CravingTech’s post on his problems told me that I needed to look and see if my theme could be the problem. Perhaps — the thumbnail script and JQuery as well certain images are responsible for many of the excessive hits. I also read the follow-up post where he talked about his move to HostGator and the one about reducing Wordpress CPU usage, which provide some useful starting points for cutting CPU load.
Where does that leave me? Since I’m not going to change hosting just yet, I need to see if the problem lies within the theme – or somewhere else. In the meantime, my site is still being throttled. Have you experienced a similar problem with shared hosting? How did you solve it?
(Photo: San Diego Shooter)
Written by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write OnlinePosted on March 11th, 2010 and filed under Blogging
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24 Responses to “Is Your Web Host Throttling Your Blog?”
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Tbh, I don’t think your host should be throttling your website. And your theme isn’t that resource taking. You should be taking to your host some more.
I’ll keep talking, but I suspect they’ve already given up.
Oh BOY, do I feel your pain. My host, InMotion, takes a different approach. Rather than throttle down, they simply pull the site offline, replacing it with a not-so-flattering “Site Suspended” page that makes it appear I’m a spammer. The real nightmare is that my account includes two domains-—my business, which has a WP blog on it, and a non-profit campaign that’s getting national media attention (no blog, no processes running in the background, all static pages with low memory use).
Needless to say, every time that “Suspended” page appears, it’s damage control time (again).
I’ve stripped down WP, the plugins, etc. There’s nothing running in the background of either site. InMotion’s only suggestion is to upgrade to a dedicated server, for $900 per year, which ain’t gonna happen. Like you, I’ve got a nice following, but nothing like Problogger or Mashable either. And did I mention…non-profit?
My cPanel has no access to anything related to the CPU usage, and InMotion has been verrry tight with any usable information or guidance. Now that I know about your dilema, I’ll follow you closely. With luck, at least one of us will find a solution that doesn’t require big bucks for more hosting that we realistically need.
Thanks for sharing your info!
CindaB, I’ll keep you posted on this issue. I’ve got to find a way to solve it, and although I’m prepared to change my theme, that shouldn’t really be the issue.
Update:
I finally got fed up with the lack of factual info from InMotion and began shopping around, stacking the specs of their VPS plan against those of their competitors. Turns out that two of the competitors looked over my current numbers, diagnosed the problem (it’s a combination of RAM and traffic, in my case), then extended them several months out to predict where my growth would be. Turns out, THAT’S what I really need to be focused on.
Which is a lot more info and assistance than InMotion gave me.
Comparing apples to apples (focused on RAM, bandwidth, and CPU usage), I can now shop around. Turns out, for the same money, I might trade off a bit in disk space that I don’t use/need, but get a lot more in the areas that I DO need. Their push to get me into a more expensive package worked…but it won’t be one of theirs. Ironic, hmmm?
Yes, that’s probably what will happen with me too; I’d be interested to hear who you went with in the end.
Have you tried any of the caching plugins? Almost everyone has heard of wp-supercache, which is great, but also consider db cache reloaded, which takes a different approach, by caching database queries. Either of those should make a difference, but if not, you may have no choice but to move to a different host. Good luck!
I’m using the SuperCache plugin, Donna, which hasn’t solved the problem. I’ll see if the other one works any better. Thanks for the recommendation.
I’ve had HORRIBLE problems with two separate blogs getting into the WP dashboard – both on Blue Host. When I moved the same blogs with the same themes and plugins and content to HostGator, the problems went away. I never dug into the backend enough to be able to say with certainty that Blue Host were the problem, but since the move, we have had no further similar issues.
You’re the second to mention Hostgator as a solution, Sue; maybe I should check them out.
This is a much more common problem than you may think. Not that it should make you feel better, but at least you are not alone.
What most site owners do not realize is the HUUUUUUGE gap between shared hosting and every other kind of hosting when it comes to price.
There really are very few middle ground areas.
You either pay $6.95 per month or you pay $100+ per month.
Personally, my company is trying to fill some of that void in the market by partnering up small groups of sites into “cloud hosting” solotions.
If you Google “cloud hosting”, you will probably find some great providers and you can learn what the cloud is all about.
On the flip side, it can be kind of pricey.
So my company puts together sites on a cloud platform at a much lower price point.
It is sort of what a VPS solution would be only in cloud form. So you get all of the benefits of the cloud with a lower entry cost (in most cases).
Here’s a little more info on that: http://blogcraving.com/preferred-hosting-blog-solutions/
At the end of the day though, if you can pull together and swing the $100 per month for a cloud based solution, it is well worth the investment. Downtime is very rare and the systems dynamically scale up to meet your momentary traffic spike needs.
I’ll look into that, Travis; I certainly need an alternative once my current hosting expires.
Have you ever thought that the hosting companies throttle larger sites in hopes to get you to upgrade to one of their VPS solutions which cost 20x a shared hosting?
It had occurred to me, Scott.
I had the very same problem as Cinda with HOSTMDS. When ever they took my site offline it took them 2 days to bring it back up – I put up with it for 6 months and lost slot of advertisers and readers!!! I’ve moved to BlueHost & haven’t had a problem yet…
I’m glad Bluehost is working well for you, Janice. I’m surprised that I’m having so many problems, as they’ve been very good in the past.
Great post. I like the post image, made me laugh
Hey, I have been throttled by Blue Host!
I scaled back all my plugins to just the ones that I like. I think what is happening is that so many people don’t just use 1 website.
A lot of us have dozens. We love plugins and now we are zapping their bandwidth.
I am thinking of opening an account with hostgator and see what happens running the same style of website with the same plugins.
I use Wordpress Super Cache too. I had Blue Host optimize my website too.
I like the customer service at Blue Host. However, I am not loyal to them if they are going to continue to throttle me. It’s gonna be adios for me!
I am removing all social book marking plugins like twitter tools, socialize, only wired, etc.
I suppose that’s true, Mark. I only have two sites with them (on this account) and the other one is so low traffic it doesn’t even count. I am actively looking for new hosting.
Some of my suggestion would be
1: Switch to some simple theme
2. Remove unnecessary plugins
3. Install Super cache plugin
Optimize Database
Delete Post revisions…
Thanks, have tried some of those. I can’t help feeling that it’s a sneaky move to shift us to a plan that generates more income for the host. On the other account, all the sites are low traffic, so there’s no excuse for throttling there, yet it’s happening.
1. The first suggestions was to reduce running processes which I should have been able to find in Cpanel via a button under the CPU throttling section. I opened it and found nothing running. Zero. Zilch.
Can you explain ?
I wish I could – I had the same experience.