A Non-Traditional Wordpress Tuning Guide - Part I

Welcome to my own non-traditional Wordpress tuning guide. It is my hope to share my personal experiences and insights with the rest of world regarding how to squeeze the most speed from the blogging software, Wordpress.

Before getting into the details, let’s talk about hosting. The reason why we’re talking about hosting first is because the physical hosting environment will set forth the limitations of the blogging platform. In other words, your blog is only to be as fast as the hardware that it is running on & the network that it is connected to. If you’re hoping to create a popular blog by running it from an old computer inside your closet using your dial-up connection, you’re going to be disappointed… not because the content is bad, but because the blog will only be as responsive as its slowest hardware component.

There are several levels of web hosting

Free web hosting service: is free, (sometimes) advertisement-supported web hosting, and is often limited when compared to paid hosting.

Shared web hosting service: one’s Web site is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. A shared website may be hosted with a reseller.

Virtual Dedicated Server: dividing a server into virtual servers, where each user feels like they’re on their own dedicated server, but they’re actually sharing a server with many other users. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. This is also known as a virtual private server or VPS.

Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. Another type of Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed or Unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for Dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the box, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated box.

The kind of web hosting that is chosen depends upon several factors including cost, hard disk space, and bandwidth. Most novices, unsure or unaware of how to make money with their blog, will begin with the most cost effective solution. (Take a look at Thinkhost @ $7.95/month.) However, some people want dedicated hosting. (Take a look at DedicatedBox. The owner regularly updates his hosting thread on the Simple Machines Forum website.)

There are those, on the other hand, who have little to no familiarity with the Wordpress blogging platform. I would recommend that these people create a free account on the Wordpress site. In this manner, you can perform experiments and get a general idea about the world of blogging without any financial obligation. The downside to this free alternative is that the degree of personal customization is severely restricted. For example, the name of your blog will be restricted to an available subdomain on the wordpress domain, and you will not be able to install plugins or take advantage of affiliate programs such as Google’s Adsense.