Speeding up older WordPress blogs
by Sapphire (February 25, 2007)
I’ve noticed lately that Project B-2 Bomber is loading slower than my other WordPress blogs with virtually identical setups. It has more posts than most of the others, but a recent experience with a malfunctioning database table causing slow load times on Project Mai Tai got me thinking: B-2 had 22 database tables. That’s 12 tables plugins had added over the years. I took a long hard look at what plugins I really needed, and which ones had functions that could be fulfilled by plugins that didn’t add tables.
First, I discovered one table for a plugin I’d tried out over a year ago and not liked, so that one was an easy choice. The rest, less so. In the end, I dumped Ultimate Tag Warrior because it was taking up 3 tables all on its own. Don’t get me wrong: it’s an awesome plugin with a lot of great functions. But I was only using it for Technorati tagging, and I’m really not sure that was bringing any traffic. From my stats, it doesn’t appear to.
Immediately the site started loading faster. So, lesson learned: keep the database tables as slim as you can. Some plugins are worth the additional tables for your site; others just aren’t, really.
Posted in Blogging Tags: Project B-2 Bomber
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