Slow Website

[YvonneM]

Hi, our Actinic website has been running for a few months now, (changed from an old ASP site), but it's painfully slow and we're getting some really negative feedback from our customers. We've also had about 6 customers saying that no matter what they add to the shopping basket, it just keeps saying it's empty!! This one is a bit strange because it works fine from our end and we're still getting orders through, so it's not happening all the time.
I'm sure it will be great when we get to grips with all the workings of Actinic and iron out the teething problems, but can anyone offer any advice in the meantime? Thanks.
www.expatessentials.com

[RuralWeb]

Took me 3 minutes to load your home page so there is something wrong - I would start with checking your host.

[jont]

On a 2mb connection it took well over 1 minute to load the homepage! Not good.

The page size is showing at 578kb which is huge - most of this is via images including several PNG files which you really should not be using online

[YvonneM]

Slow Website

Hi Malcolm,
Thanks for this. I have spoken to our hosting company, (they are also the website designers) and they're looking into it, but so far can't figure out what's causing the problem.
Yvonne

[YvonneM]

Slow Website

Thanks for your reply Jonty. We have recently had some new images put on the homepage and it is a bit slower since then but it was also very slow before we added the new images, so maybe it's just added slightly to the problem that was already there.
Anyway, I really appreciate your help and I'll pass on your comments to our hosting/web design company.
Thanks.
Yvonne

[RuralWeb]

Your site is using norms menu (hope you made a donation!!) and the YahooSections java script menu has been left in the template - this has been the source of many heavy sites in the past. Get your design company to remove it.

[Mr Bump]

I would also ask them where they are hosting it.

[RuralWeb]

Its hosted in the UK which you could argue is not the best place for an Expats site maybe the US would be better.

[newshopbloke]

The dns, traceroute and ip info lookup do not produce good results and I would assume that your hosting space is probably 3rd or 4th hand - sold 3 or 4 times before you get it.

Always try to buy hosting from a company that actually owns and controls the server or better still - owns the entire datacenter !

Ive just sacked 1and1 and am now hosting the shop again on my £12 per year u.s.a space, ive had some problems in the past with overall speed but the support is second to none and overall its the best 'cheap deal' available.

[YvonneM]

Slow Website

Hi, thanks all of you for your feedback, it's been really helpful. Our hosting company are now checking all the things mentioned, so hopefully we'll see a big improvement over the next few days.
Yvonne
www.expatessentials.com