Comments on: Site Maintenance

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:16:45 +0000

Thanks Ronnie… appreciated. I’m definitely going to spend some time optimizing.

By: ronnie

ronnie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:12:29 +0000

Just wanted to chime in on James’ sugggestions. Optimizing your theme/plugins/database calls can do a lot for you.
I moved to a VPS a while ago but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really need it. There’s a whole different set of worries when you are in control of your own (vp)server.

Another thing I experience every now and then is that the MySQL database needs some cleaning up. Some tables can grow to have a lot of overhead over time and optimizing those tables (I think the wp-options one can really become a problem) can also drastically improve your database performance.

Anyway, it seems the site is indeed running pretty smoothly right now, so keep that cash in your pocket!

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:10:36 +0000

iPower says they fixed the problem. I always believe people should have a chance to work things out so I’m going to give it a few days to be sure. Nevertheless I need to install a cache plug-in this weekend. Whatever happens it will be ok because I have been backing up the site fully and regularly.

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:01:29 +0000

Yeah it’s long overdue! I really do want to keep this blog growing especially with original content so new server is going to be a must. Stay tuned!

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:59:56 +0000

Much appreciated advise. Some I didn’t know before… ps. as you know your site is great and any Wire to the Ear reader should also be reading Synthtopia: http://www.synthtopia.com/

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:56:33 +0000

Media Temple does look pretty interesting. Thanks for the heads up. I’m planning to move this week somewhere for sure.

By: Raytrace

Raytrace — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:18:16 +0000

yeh I thought there was something wrong although usually when I used to see those errors I thought you were just updating, but when I realised the last post hadnt updated for a good while, I thought something must be up…

good sign though that an upgrade is needed :)

By: gish

gish — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:43:15 +0000

If there is really a growth in your stats then it’s the right way to go.
Those errors usually occur when there are more than a set-up number of connections per second and the server can’t handle it. The cheapest dedicated server that I know of is somewhere around 50$ monthly but on the other hand that would probably be too fast for just one site.

Hope you’ll manage to figure something out!

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:39:34 +0000

You might want to check out the VPS plans from VPS Link (http://vpslink.com/vps-hosting/) and see how they compare to the inMotion plans. Haven’t had any issues with vpslink for over a year.

By: James Lewin

James Lewin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:31:45 +0000

Oliver

Sorry to hear about the site troubles. I’ve struggled with the same error message a couple times in the growth of Synthtopia. For us, the webs erver was making too many database calls for our plan to support, so requests were backing up.

Here are a few things that may help make immediate, but temporary, improvements: reduce the number of posts included on the index page; temporarily remove optional widgets that add a lot of database calls; replace widgets where possible with a static text widget (ie – Links & Categories rarely change); and turn off any optional plugins.

Here are few things that take more work, but make bigger improvements: edit your theme to eliminate useless database calls (ie., hard-code your blog name in the header); add a caching plug-in like hypercache or super cache; disable post revisions; compare themes and find one that uses fewer database calls; get a better hosting plan.

Hope this helps. Good luck with it!