How fast is your software? Will my site be slow
Problem:
I want to know if the php/mysql combination is fast and how your software is related to site performance.Solution:
There are several things that affect the speed of a site delivered to the browser and also a few things to know about our software with respect to delivery of this information.Keep in mind the ultimate goal is to deliver content from one server to a visitor's pc. The information for your site is stored on your host's server and must be sent from there to the user's pc.
With respect to our software the information is dynamic. Meaning the software is setup to expect the information on the site to change because users are placing ads, ads are expiring, etc... This information is stored in the database. The php files run the appropriate functions and retrieve only the information necessary to deliver the content from the database to the end user's pc. These two applications (php/mysql) have been proven to be one of the fastest ways to deliver content(html) to a browser. Also, note that the end result of any software or web applications is to deliver html to the visitor's browser. We have done everything that we know of to allow for optimal performance using php and mysql while still allowing for the administrator to fully administer the site without editing the php functions and offer this to their clients/visitors.
1. Server - server speed can affect the site performance. The server's ability can contribute greatly to this and slow sites are typically due to either a shared hosting account that has too many sites on a single server or the outgoing lines from the hosting company are not large enough to handle the current sites that they host. You may consider talking to your host regarding this.
2. Incoming - this is your connection to the internet. Obviously slower connections will deliver sites slower. The actual speed though is directly related to the size of the page being viewed. In most cases, since the final result of what the user sees is html, images are the reason that the page size too large. Basically, if a page is slow and all else is in good shape than the information on that page is too large and the bulk of it is images. With respect to our software, you could have too many images displaying on a single page, the image size allowed is too large, or you are not setting the image quality to an optimumn in admin > ad configuration > images configuration > quality adjustment for resized images: Typcially we have seen that 20 is a good value but this is really an administrative decision. This also applies to your html in the templates, modules, etc... and the images themselves.