Resource usage exceed on Site5's Turbo plan?

[shekhar]

After having a worse experience with Hostgator (extremely poor & delayed support) I did my searching for another viable host and landed on the 'Hostgator Alternative' () Guide of DigitalFAQ. After reading such honest and detailed explanation of the reason behind Hostgator's downfall, I finally zeroed in on Site5 for my websites. It was October 2015.

However, as no clarification was available on the guide, I remained unaware that Site5 had already been acquired by EIG. Initial few months went smoothly. However, A few weeks ago I got an email from Site5 stating that my website has been using too much resources on their shared server and I was asked to reduce my resource usage or else upgrade to their VPS plan. They gave me a 7 day deadline for this.

It was a surprising news for me because my sites (all Wordpress based) attracts only a total of 1600-1700 visitors per day. Most of the traffic is organic (Search engine) and no discussion (Forum etc) module is there that may result in excess server usage by few users. Therefore, I was quite surprised as to how and why such low performing sites can burden the resource of Site5's server.

Nevertheless, I took steps to reduce my resource usages: These includes installing Wp-Total Cache plugin, Deactivating Wordpress Heart Beat API (which was triggering admin-ajax.php on every page load) on all my blogs and finally putting my sites through Cloudflare's server. Some of these suggestions were advised to me by Site5's staff.

However, despite this, there is been almost no reduction whatsoever in the resource usage of my website. This is really frustrating.

Site5 staff, instead of working with me further to optimize my site, refused to give me any further time and instead upgrade me to their VPS plan (requiring $55/month) by stating that their shared server cannot tolerate huge activities being generated from my sites.

Since my sites are basically hobbies sites with very little revenue, the VPS model is simply not affordable to me and I have to change my host.

Before I change my host, I have following questions: -

(1) Is it normal for a wordpress site generating 1400-1500 visitors per day to exceed the resource usgae limit 4-5 times than the permisible one?

(2) As Site5 is now owned by EIG Group, can it be a tactic of the new management to force me to upgrade to a higher plan given the fact that all my optimization efforts have resulted into nil improvement in the resource usage side?

(3) I am afraid that if the resource usage was a real issue, the same problem would come at my new host also. The problem is that being a webmsater with very limited network/server's knowledge, it is very difficult for me to find the real cause of my excess resource usage. Is there any newbie friendly guide that can help me reduce resource usage of my sites?

(4) Further, I think that the guide of DigitalFAQ needs amendment to clearly specify the present standing of Site5 (i.e they are now owned by EIG).

[kpmedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shekhar

However, as no clarification was available on the guide, I remained unaware that Site5 had already been acquired by EIG. Initial few months went smoothly. However, A few weeks ago I got an email from Site5 stating that my website has been using too much resources on their shared server and I was asked to reduce my resource usage or else upgrade to their VPS plan. They gave me a 7 day deadline for this.

Site5 was acquired by EIG in 2015, but has not yet been affected. The old leadership is in charge, servers unaffected, etc. So anything you see from them is still Site5 of old, not EIG. Their migrations are not scheduled until at least Q3 2016, and we'll be issuing a detailed update in Q2. It's still Q1 right now. So we all have time. Replacing Site5 is not an easy task, as they had many quality products. It'll take probably 5-10 hosts to do what they once did. It's a real shame to see Site5 go.

Quote:

Nevertheless, I took steps to reduce my resource usages: These includes installing Wp-Total Cache plugin, Deactivating Wordpress Heart Beat API (which was triggering admin-ajax.php on every page load) on all my blogs and finally putting my sites through Cloudflare's server. Some of these suggestions were advised to me by Site5's staff.

The W3TC cache is actually a resource-gobbler itself. Depending on some factors, I can give you alternative options that are leaner and truly less resource intensive. W3TC is popular, but popularity isn't always quality -- a lesson we all learn back in high school.

Using CloudFlare is not going to help cut down on resources, as it cannot cache dynamic content. And dynamic content (php) is what causes the load issues. At best, it will cut down on bad requests that may cause WordPress to use resources (ie, brute forcing wp-admin with a flood of requests). That was a grasping-at-straws solution, and the tech should have stated this.

Quote:

Site5 staff, instead of working with me further to optimize my site, refused to give me any further time and instead upgrade me to their VPS plan (requiring $55/month) by stating that their shared server cannot tolerate huge activities being generated from my sites.

Most hosts will do this. If a site is abusing the shared server, it has to go, in order to not harm everybody else on that server. Site5 generally gives the first month of the VPS for free (charging only the shared price plan), so you can either solve the issue and go back to shared, or see that it really does need the resources and stay on VPS. Or leave for another host (but understanding that won't solve the issue, and it will follow you to the next host).

Site5 doesn't use CloudLinux, so moving customers off shared is a priority. CloudLinux-using hosts may be able to further give you a breakdown of the issues, as CL has some advanced graphs and calculations that are missing or manual in plan Apache. Site5 does have their Resource Points (RP) system, but it's still not as advanced for troubleshooting. The CL hosts are also not in a hurry, as the site won't be allowed to truly harm the server.

Quote:

(1) Is it normal for a wordpress site generating 1400-1500 visitors per day to exceed the resource usgae limit 4-5 times than the permisible one?

Sadly, yes. WordPress is a poorly written code. It can be easily abused, and quickly runs up CPU and/or RAM. You really have to lock it down -- both for security and resource use. Themes and plugins are the biggest issue. Remember that WordPress is not a company with vetted releases, but rather a platform that anybody can program for. Some coders are geniuses, and others are terrible. I've seen too many plugins that having looping code, backdoors, etc, simply because the programmer was an idiot. I really wish the codex had a "skill level" attached to plugin devs, so I can see if the guy/gal has 2 minutes or 2 decades of php experience.

Quote:

(2) As Site5 is now owned by EIG Group, can it be a tactic of the new management to force me to upgrade to a higher plan given the fact that all my optimization efforts have resulted into nil improvement in the resource usage side?

At this time, no. You're not dealing with EIG. You're dealing with Site5 still. EIG has not touched it yet.

Quote:

(3) I am afraid that if the resource usage was a real issue, the same problem would come at my new host also. The problem is that being a webmsater with very limited network/server's knowledge, it is very difficult for me to find the real cause of my excess resource usage. Is there any newbie friendly guide that can help me reduce resource usage of my sites?

I'll help you.
List out all your plugins and themes...

Quote:

(4) Further, I think that the guide of DigitalFAQ needs amendment to clearly specify the present standing of Site5 (i.e they are now owned by EIG).

This is in progress. It's going to be a strange update. Godaddy is now a good host (new internal management, new direction), while Site5 is going to EIG (not good).

We lost A Small Orange and Arvixe to EIG in 2015 as well. Those were also a pair of decent hosts. Arvixe was acquired in 2014, and ASO with Hostgator in 2012. It took EIG 3 years to bother ASO, but we all knew it was coming. They really screwed it up. That was already updated, reflected in guides.

How much per month can you budget/pay for quality hosts? Where are you, and where are your site visitors. I'll help you locate the best host for your needs.

Is $25 monthly doable? More, less?
Can you pay per year (discounts), or do you need to pay by month (more costly)?

Get back to me.

[shekhar]

Thanks a lot for your reply. At last, I am seeing some rays of hope. I take your word that Site5 has not changed. Let me tell you in some detail about my problem so that you can judge my situation properly:-

(1) I have 5 websites- all on wordpress. Except the one (in meditation niche), all are presently not being attended by me and, as such, are attracting almost negligible amount of traffic. They are meant to be attended at some proper time in future and at present only some long tail traffic is coming their way.

(2) The site in meditation niche is the main website which, after a long gap of 4 years, is being revived by me by way of web promotion. Up to December 2015, it was a static html website and in January I converted it into wordpress to make it responsive. It has almost 200 content pages which are attracting 1500 visitors/day on average. Here is a screenshot of site's traffic from statcounter:



I feel that the main reason for huge shoot up in resource usage is because of the conversion of my main website from static html to wordpress. I never thought that I would face such problem.

(3) The site's details with regard to the theme and plugins are as under:-

(i) Theme : Canvas from Wootheme

(ii) Plugins : Here is the list

Advanced TinyMCE Config by Andrew Ozz.
Akismet by Automattic.
Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall by Eli Scheetz.
BackupBuddy by iThemes.
Category Sticky Post by Tom McFarlin.
CloudFlare by Ian Pye, Jerome Chen, James Greene, Simon Moore, David Fritsch, John Wineman (CloudFlare Team).
Default Sort Ascend by Dennis Steed.
Duplicate Menu by Jonathan Christopher.
Easy Adsense Injection by Deepanker.
Easy Custom Sidebars by Titanium Themes.
Fast Secure Contact Form by Mike Challis, Ken Carlson.
Features by WooThemes.
FooTable by Brad Vincent.
Google Font Manager by Thomas S. Butler.
Heartbeat Control by Jeff Matson.
iThemes Sync by iThemes.
List all URLs by Evan Scheingross.
myStickymenu by m.r.d.a.
Official StatCounter Plugin by Aodhan Cullen.
Orbisius Child Theme Creator by Svetoslav Marinov (Slavi).
Plugins List by David Artiss.
Q2W3 Fixed Widget by Max Bond.
Quttera Web Malware Scanner by Quttera team.
Shortcodes Pro by Matt Varone.
Simple Follow Me Social Buttons Widget by Lucy Tomás.
Simple Share Buttons Light by Simple Share Buttons.
ThirstyAffiliates by ThirstyAffiliates.
Thrive Leads by Thrive Themes.
Triagis® Security Evaluation by Triagis Ltd..
UberMenu 3 - The Ultimate WordPress Mega Menu by Chris Mavricos, SevenSpark.
UberMenu Icons by Chris Mavricos, SevenSpark.
W3 Total Cache by Frederick Townes.
Widget Customizer by Mihajlovic Nenad.
Widget Facebook like box by wpladge.
WooThemes Helper by WooThemes.
Wordfence Security by Wordfence.
WP Changes Tracker by pixeline.
WP Gallery Custom Links by Four Lights Web Development.
WYSIWYG Widgets / Widget Blocks by Danny van Kooten.
Yoast SEO by Team Yoast.

As regards the other info, here it is

Quote:

Where are you, and where are your site visitors. I'll help you locate the best host for your needs.

I am from India. My site attracts visitors from around the world. The two main countries are US & India.

Quote:

How much per month can you budget/pay for quality hosts?
Is $25 monthly doable? More, less?
Can you pay per year (discounts), or do you need to pay by month (more costly)?

I want to self sustain the site so that it can pay for itself. At present, I am spending $15/month using turbo plan of Site5. Based on the revenue being generated by site, I can stretch it upto $25 (in anticipation that after being on a good host and after getting enough promotion, it will justify the cost).

I can pay the yearly cost. However, after my experience with Site5, I am a bit afraid to go for the yearly plan. I hope you understand what I mean.

So there is all that I can tell about the site. One more thing I want to add is that apart from the main website, all other sites are hosted as sub-domain.

Thanks !
Shekhar

-- merged --

Dear KPmedia,

I am eagerly waiting for a reply. I am unable to concentrate on my website/s as first of all I want to fix this entire hosting issue. Please advise me at the earliest if feasible.

Regards,
Shekhar

[kpmedia]

Quote:

not being attended by me

Hopefully this does not mean that you're allowing the site to go un-updated, as that can be a real issue. WordPress can really be abused by DDoS-like brute force attacks, and it always drives up the resources. You must not only keep it updated to thwart attacks, but ensure that it has adequate security. And I don't mean silly "security" plugins (100% useless), but htaccess security measures.

Quote:

W3 Total Cache by Frederick Townes.

Look at dumping this. W3TC is simply resource intensive. Try Hypercache or Hypercache Extended instead. Don't worry about gzip (handled by the server) or minify (handled by CloudFlare). There are some others, but start there. Part of the issue is that W3TC tries to do too much, and it should not. It's not lean.

Quote:

BackupBuddy

This can be abusive, especially if you're using it on multiple domains in a single account. Most quality hosts have daily backups in place, and this is redundant. Some hosts even disallow this plugin, or will remove you from their backups (better!) if you insist on using it.

Quote:

List all URLs by Evan Scheingross.

These sorts of plugins can tank a site. Same for "related post" type plugins. They make a lot of connections, and run up CPU, RAM, and MySQL queries (also RAM).

Quote:

Quttera Web Malware Scanner

Compared to server-based scanning (which are realtime; examples: cxs, maldet), these sorts of plugins are jokes. At best, they use a ton of resources to scan sites. At worst, they miss things. It's a lose-lose scenario. It's waste of time, and simply makes you feel better without actually begin effective.

Quote:

Wordfence Security

Part of the problem is that you're stacking plugins with conflicting tasks. You have at least two "security" plugins with overlapping functions. That's bad. Also realize that some plugins are good, but not with everything turned on. WordFence has some useful aspects, but some are also useless and merely drive up resource use.

Quote:

CloudFlare by

In all honesty, this plugin is useless -- unless you allow blog comments. But if you're using CloudFlare, Akismet is redundant. Are you allowing comments?

The P3 plugin (from Godaddy) can sometimes be useful to track resource use by plugins.
Download from: https://wordpress.org/plugins/p3-profiler

What are your site URLs? Either post them here, or PM me.

Eventually, yes, you want to get off Site5. I can give you some options, but let's look at making WordPress behave first.

Some of the other plugins I need to research, as I'm not entirely familiar with them (yet).

[shekhar]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I have PM you the URL.

Quote:

Hopefully this does not mean that you're allowing the site to go un-updated, as that can be a real issue.

Yes, the other sites, though unattended (as far as generation of new content on them is concerned), are being regularly updated by me. All have the latest version of wordpress & plugins installed.

Just for your information, I use the itheme sync service to manage updates all from one place i.e. from their dashboard. Whenever, there is an update, I get am email from ithemesync about it. I don't know whether it affects the site's performance or otherwise.

Quote:

The P3 plugin (from Godaddy) can sometimes be useful to track resource use by plugins.

Thanks a lot for telling me about this plugin. I installed it and run the scan on the main website. I think that the scan result have shown me the main culprits. Here is the scan results from this plugin:-

WordPress Plugin Profile Report
===========================================
Report date: February 20, 2016
Theme name: Canvas Child 01
Pages browsed: 20
Avg. load time: 3.6393 sec
Number of plugins: 37
Plugin impact: 51.40% of load time
Avg. plugin time: 1.8706 sec
Avg. core time: 0.3326 sec
Avg. theme time: 0.8003 sec
Avg. mem usage: 155.44 MB
Avg. ticks: 185,619
Avg. db queries : 101.70
Margin of error : 0.6357 sec

Plugin list:
===========================================
P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) - 0.0029 sec - 0.15%
Advanced Tinymce Configuration - 0.0002 sec - 0.01%
Akismet - 0.0092 sec - 0.49%
BackupBuddy - 0.0174 sec - 0.93%
Category Sticky Post - 0.0013 sec - 0.07%
Default Sort Ascend - 0.0014 sec - 0.07%
Duplicate Menu - 0.0005 sec - 0.03%
Easy Adsense Injection - 0.0006 sec - 0.03%
Easy Custom Sidebars - 0.0179 sec - 0.96%
FooTable - 0.0097 sec - 0.52%
Google Font Manager - 0.0141 sec - 0.75%
Gotmls - 0.0068 sec - 0.36%
Heartbeat Control - 0.0009 sec - 0.05%
Ithemes Sync - 0.0138 sec - 0.74%
Widget Facebook like box - 0.0010 sec - 0.05%
myStickymenu - 0.0017 sec - 0.09%
Official Statcounter Plugin For Wordpress - 0.0048 sec - 0.26%
Orbisius Child Theme Creator - 0.0015 sec - 0.08%
Q2W3 Fixed Widget - 0.0011 sec - 0.06%
Server IP & Memory Usage Display - 0.0003 sec - 0.02%
Shortcodes Pro - 0.0071 sec - 0.38%
Fast Secure Contact Form - 0.0186 sec - 0.99%
Simple Follow Me Social Buttons Widget - 0.0048 sec - 0.26%
Simple Share Buttons Light - 0.0076 sec - 0.41%
ThirstyAffiliates - 0.0049 sec - 0.26%
Thrive Leads - 0.7680 sec - 41.05%
Triagis Security Evaluation - 0.0071 sec - 0.38%
Ubermenu Icons - 0.0079 sec - 0.42%
UberMenu 3 - The Ultimate WordPress Mega Menu - 0.2072 sec - 11.08%
W3 Total Cache - 0.2134 sec - 11.41%
Widget Customizer - 0.0070 sec - 0.37%
WooThemes Helper - 0.0069 sec - 0.37%
Wordfence Security - 0.2881 sec - 15.40%
Wordpress Seo - 0.1906 sec - 10.19%
WP Changes Tracker - 0.0070 sec - 0.38%
WP Gallery Custom Links - 0.0004 sec - 0.02%
WYSIWYG Widgets / Widget Blocks - 0.0170 sec - 0.91%

Here is a summarized graph:



It seems that Thrive Leads, Uber Mega Menu & W3 Total Cache are usingthe biggest resources. Wordfence, though using 15% (2nd highest) is perhaps necessary to make the site secure.

As regards Backupbuddy, I have installed it on three installation on the server. However, it is using less than 1% of the resource on main website. I think it may not be such a resource gobbler. What do you think?

While I will be making necessary changes as suggested by you, please have a look at the scan results and advise.

Regards,
Shekhar

[kpmedia]

Thrive Leads looks to be wholly unreasonable to me. There's no excuse for that resource waste. And honestly, I'm not surprised. A lot of those "marketing" plugins are half-baked and poorly coded. I see far too many of those on Warrior Forum, and similar places. I've even bought 1-2 myself, only to discover that it's a coding abortion.

UberMenu is the same. That needs to go.

The problem with "premium plugins" is that they're not well-vetted. Again, WordPress is a mish-mash of developers, and most are amateurs. Ubermenu has a pretty website, but their product is poorly coded. This is sadly quite common. The better plugins are free, and the paid plugins have issues. You'll also find that paid plugin authors go MIA much faster than free plugin authors, At least free plugins can be forked and continued, which is often what happens. If you rely too heavily on a paid plugin (or even free one), and that author disappears, you may find yourself screwed when it comes time to update WordPress. Been there, done that.

Wordfence may need to be finessed. Its default settings are not great.

Not much can be done about Yoast SEO.

W3TC is, as usual, being a hog. Hypercache probably uses 10% of that. W3TC tries to do too much, and much of it is not needed. It just adds needless queries and processing.

Backup plugins will use a lot of resources when running. That can cause spikes. Longer spikes will trigger "you must upgrade" alerts from some hosts.

For the "it's life" site, what theme is that?


Off-topic:
The hardest part of meditation is clearing your mind. And it was much easier to do pre-internet. I'm amazed at how many people cannot focus on something simple, like the songs of birds, or the sound of the wind.

[shekhar]

Hi,

I have disabled the Thrive Leads, Uber Menu, W3 Total Cache and even Backup buddy. Further, I have installed the Hyper Cache Extended. This has resulted into an overall improvement in the plugin performances as indicated by P-3 Profiler plugin.

Here is a screenshot of plugin performance as per the last 4 scans of P-3 profiler in the order from oldest to latest :



I have disabled the above resource monger plugins from my other installations also and have asked the Site5's support to indicate the resource usage of my account for 20 & 21st Feb. It is quite strange that in their VPS plan, there is no way to check our resource usage and we need to create a support ticket for it !

I think this is all that I can do as far as taming my wordpress blogs are concerned. It is really painful to know that these premium plugins on which I invested so much money are such huge resource eaters (Just a few months ago I had purchased the life time license for Backupbuddy - the gold version ).

I also came across one plugin by the name Autoptimize (https://wordpress.org/plugins/autoptimize/). It looks very promising. However, upon installing it on my main site and checking through P-3 profiler, I could not notice any significant improvement. In fact, the core plugin time increased a bit. What's your opinion on that ?

The site 'itslife' is using the 'TruePixel' theme by 'MythemeShop'.

I also request you to advise me about some good and reliable host where I may not face such difficulties.

Offtopic : The easiest thing about meditation is to write about it. The toughest part is to really make a part of your core. The ultimate test is to be in the market place, facing the unfolding of uncontrollable life events and see if you are unaffected or not. I am yet to pass this test. Still a long way to go...

[kpmedia]

I'd need to re-look at P3, as I'm not sure if it shows CPU and RAM impact. I know the host is only going to care about resource use, and not load time. Queries can have an affect, but you'll have to analyze RAM to know if the queries are an issue. Again, P3 helps, but it's not a cure-all.

Yes, paying for plugins, only to realize they're causing problems (or were abandoned) is extremely aggravating. You're not alone here. I'm savvier than your average WP user (having used WP for almost 10 years now), but have not been immune to making bad choices here. And when the plugin mattered more than resources (including my own custom plugins), I've had to adopt dedicated servers for $$$ per month. Sometimes there's no low-impact way to write a plugin.

Autoptimize may be useless for some sites. It simply minifies JS, CSS, and HTML -- something that most coders already do in modern themes. You can minify what's already minified.

How many sites do you have?

WordPress sites, in a single account as "addon domains" is a problem. (A) it's unsafe, and (B) resource use gets out of hand. You need multi-account hosting, aka "reseller" hosting. Note that you don't need to resell anything, so the name is misleading.

Anywhere in USA is fine?

I have another option that I may PM you about, once I know how many sites you have.

[shekhar]

Just sent you a PM about my sites.

[shekhar]

Here's a resource usage for my account in past few days as advised by Site5 staff today :

2016-02-22: 2616.21 RP
2016-02-21: 3395.67 RP
2016-02-20: 3768.59 RP

The permissible limit for their Turbo plan is just 600.

Further, they have advised that it is a php process.

medita00 mysite .com 49.0%CPU php55
medita00 mysite .com 45.0%CPU php53
medita00 mysite .com 43.0%CPU php55

I think all my efforts to optimize are going in vain. Nothing seems to work. While, I will continue to optimize site for some days more, I request you to please advise, if possible, some other webhost suitable to my needs.

Thanks
Shekhar