This guide explains how to optimize a website hosted on a Web Hosting plan to make it faster and provide a smooth browsing experience for all your visitors, regardless of their connection speed.

The role of the hosting provider

1. Your hosting server is operating normally and has not experienced any incidents in the last 48 hours.
2. The network infrastructure has not experienced any disruptions during the same period.

The role of the website owner and webmaster

Infomaniak does not intervene in the content of the servers or in the development of websites. The creation and maintenance of a website are distinct professions, although they use the tools and services provided by the hosting provider.

Analyze the cause of slowdowns

Here are the steps to take if you notice slowdowns on your website:

1. Apply the Google PageSpeed Insights recommendations. These points relate to the website design and not the server configuration. Consult this other guide if the test recommends enabling resource compression.
2. If slowness is observed from abroad, activate DNS Fast Anycast.
3. Install a caching system to reduce redundant database access and speed up page loading.
4. Consider using a CDN.
5. Test the server response time or TTFB.
6. Scan your hosting to detect any viruses.
7. Regularly purge your databases by deleting unnecessary entries.
8. Use the latest version of PHP compatible with your website or CMS.
9. Avoid images, counters, or media hosted on external servers: if they are unavailable, your site will appear slow.
10. Disable unnecessary or resource-intensive WordPress extensions.
11. Keep your CMS and web applications updated regularly.
12. Limit the impact of overly aggressive indexing bots by configuring a Crawl-delay.
13. Analyze the error logs: correcting errors generated by your site improves its performance.
14. Review the slow logs to identify SQL queries that take more than 5 seconds to execute and optimize them (optimization examples).
15. Add a server-side cache engine such as Memcached (available only on Cloud servers).
16. Increase the max_children value (only on Cloud servers).

If the problem persists

If you or your webmaster cannot identify the cause of the slowdown, contact Infomaniak support in writing, providing the following information:

1. Name of the hosted website.
2. Precise dates and times when slowdowns occurred.
3. Name of the database or FTP account potentially involved.
4. Your public IP address during the tests (visible on https://www.infomaniak.com/ip).
5. Type of slowdown (display, FTP transfers, etc.).
6. Indicate whether you normally access the Infomaniak website during these episodes.
7. Complete result of a traceroute to 84.16.66.66.
8. Result of a speed test on speedtest.net, selecting Infomaniak as the destination server.

If your needs evolve

If shared hosting is no longer sufficient, consider switching to a Cloud Server. Your website can be easily migrated to benefit from dedicated resources and advanced caching technologies.