Improving Site Speed

After updating WordPress, I realize that my site loaded slower. I notice several spikes in CPU usage when extracting new feeds. However, on the average, my resource utilization is pretty low. I inform my webhost about it and I specifically tell them that upgrading more resources is the last thing I want to do.

They were kind enough to do this for me:

We have optimized apache and Mysql configurations on your server and now we can see that your domains are loading fine without any slowness. We have increased the following values in Mysql configuration file.

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max_heap_table_size
thread_cache_size
table_open_cache
tmp_table_size
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Currently you are using word press site, some themes and Plugins may cause domain slowness. You may please try to disable and re-enable each themes and plugins which helps to find out which one causing domain slowness.

You can view your domain statics or logs through Webalizer Stats option available in cPanel. Please follow the below steps to view the same.

1. login to cPanel account of your domain

2. Click on Webalizer under logs section >> and then click on view.

Could you please check and let us know if you still face any difficulties ?

I decided to use Google page speed online to identify what I can improve on. I got a score of 87/100 which I think is pretty decent. Nevertheless, I decided to look at the high priority issues.

I realize that about 50% of the enable compression is caused by Ads and I decide to test out how much faster  my site will become if I remove that ad.

Hmm.. no difference when I remove both ads but still I will remove the leaderboard at the bottom which I think generate very little traffic.