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How to make WordPress weather bad traffic storms
turbochargedcms.com — WordPress is often maligned as a resource-hungry blog platform — one that requires a lot of resources to run in high-traffic settings. But believe it or not, it’s possible to survive traffic spikes, while still serving pages to your audience swiftly. And you won’t need big iron to do it.
mangiafico- 814 diggs
- digg it
- axisds, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3That was one of the better articles I've read in a while. I will implement these when I get a chance.
- hode, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Really? I keep trying to access the page, but all I get is Error 419: Irony.
- coit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Yeah, after hitting the frontpage, his site only took about 30 seconds to load. Not bad eh?
- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It's a very good article but it really only applies to those who have full access to their server. If you're running off a web host like I am you are probably stuck with most service limitations MySQL and Apache are set to according to your account level and quotas.
Long story short here, install WP-Cache and increase the recache time if you anticipate heavy load. By default WP-Cache maintains individual page caches for 6000 seconds or so which should be much more than sufficient. I shortened mine to 600 because I get so little traffic.
--edit-- make no mistake - MySQL is the main bottleneck here, and the more plugins you have, the more likely you increase MySQL requests per pageview. My blog does something like 3 or 4 MySQL requests per pageview. - himey, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12The page no longer loads. Buried as inaccurate.
- christopheles, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Digg effect irony.
Beautiful. - Vandon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Digg-vertisement for another product that is based off of wordpress.
- thejaan, on 10/12/2007, -13/+4I don't believe in that whole turbocharged thing. My blog loads just fine and I'll keep it that way.
"If it's not broken DON'T try to fix it".- DCUK, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Your blog isn't popular enough, it's just a fact that wordpress buckles when you are hit with a big increase in traffic.
This is a great article for those who have a popular blog or have plans to get it linked to places like digg.
- DCUK, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Your blog isn't popular enough, it's just a fact that wordpress buckles when you are hit with a big increase in traffic.
- brianheys, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Interesting article. Looks like an interesting plug-in, too. Probably worth looking at if you regularly experience outages due to traffic surges.
- kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3Dunno, get better hosting and don't rely on WordPress for major websites is my guess.
- mjsteinbaugh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Packaging wp-cache with a WordPress install and changing the name to "Turbocharged" doesn't really constitute a new CMS.
- howtogeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's all marketing... this article is just very informative spam.
- RuddO, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I don't think what you suggested would merit the name of "a new CMS" either. But, at least to my knowledge, Turbocharged isn't what you're suggesting. So I beg to differ with the spirit of your comment :-).
- V1ncent, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Wordpress isn't unfairly maligned as a CPU-hog, it is a CPU-hog.
- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5MySQL is the cpu hog, not the blog platform. If you keep WordPress/Apache on a separate server than MySQL it won't be the Apache box that craps out.
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The primary problem with WordPress is that it seems to do at least 1 DB hit for every page view.
Unless the data you're displaying needs to be real-time, which blog posts typically don't, this design is inexcusable and is a sign of inexperience.- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2The primary problem is that the design of Wordpress' database is poor, at best. I like and use the thing, but it's just badly designed on that level and needs to be reworked from the ground up. Maybe for 3.0 or something. :)
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2The primary problem is that the design of Wordpress' database is poor, at best. I like and use the thing, but it's just badly designed on that level and needs to be reworked from the ground up. Maybe for 3.0 or something. :)
- webaj, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Use http://www.Drupal.org
Use http://www.dotcache.com - yongfookathome, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12WTF? They bundle a bunch of plugins in Wordpress and charge you $29 for it? What a ***** disgrace - it's all free, open source software!
- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5WordPress is GNU GPL so that's within fair use. They're probably charging for the storage medium.
- etandrib, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Hahaha. Is he using his own plug-ins? It seems his site is REALLY slow. :)
- betobeto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Oh, the irony.
- HossStyle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1That is ironic isn't it...?
- patience, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22 minutes later...still loading....This is a joke...
Please fix the front page...I have no desire to be on reddit at all - zimsters, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1ah the irony! site is down
- voodish, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1How ironic the fact that the page you linked to just timed out!
- DrPill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Wow. Apparently it didn't hold up so well...the friggin website is down.
Thanks for the advice - loafer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1-=- Ironic how quickly that site died -=-
Sounds like something I posted ages ago though, WP-cache2 and this .htaccess trick to enable php compression to get the connection outta-there extra quick.
I posted the tricks at http://blog.iloaf.com/2007/03/15/make-wordpress-quicker/ but you need WP-cache2 first
...that took a 6 page a second wordpress implementation on a shared server to 58/second in under an hour.
Possible kook alert?- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Those .htaccess additions just return a 500 error when I try to access my blog. Guess it's server-specific, but not specific to mine.
- CarzorStelatis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Their site is down. I presume nobody will be buying their 'SUPER1337 YOUR WORDPRES!!!1!!one' product now?
- JamesonHuckaba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hilarious. :-) I love the irony.
- 1newyorkguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3what a p.o.s. site. and why so many diggs?
dugg down for being a p.o.s. spammer - riohot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Did you implement your ideas - site down - buried story as inaccurate!
- digdugdone, on 10/12/2007, -7/+109F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
- aweblogs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Install the WP-Cache plugin especially if you dont run your blog on a dedi server.
www.wpthemesplugin.com - phoomp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Most valuable Digg story EVAR
- RuddO, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Okay, guys. I'm unbanned from Digg and can comment on the situation now. I enabled Share This! which consequently caused the site to die. I have disabled it, but the amount of traffic (sixty, seventy requests per second) is *exceeding* what a single non-load-balanced machine can handle.
And to the first commenter: it's not just WordPress + WP-Cache. It's a lot more.- javaroast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Spam by any other name still smell as bad
- professorChaos, on 10/12/2007, -7/+109-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
- Montrell274, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0his own site doesn't work...
- RuddO, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0So, is it still slow? Because the page hasn't failed for me since I disabled the Share This plugin.
- RuddO, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Oh, by the way, the same Apache/Squid servers are serving Rudd-O.com... you know, the page whose submission started the Digg HD-DVD night?. Yes, it's a Xen dedicated virtual server. No, it isn't a monster server.
Apologies if it's still slow (it isn't over here), but you guys really jumped the gun with your judgments. - nogurus, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0enjoyed the article at length gives me some new ideas and direction to try new things
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