I use WP Clean Up, and it has never caused me any trouble:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?type=term&q=wp+clean+up
For whatever reason or reasons, it apparently does more than the built-in WordPress optimizer that has never seemed to me to do much at all.
note: Be sure to look closely at what is going to be deleted before using the WP Clean Up “Delete All” button if you have any drafts or whatever you do not want to have removed altogether and forever. Then after your deletes, scroll down and simply click “Optimize” and watch how the size of your database will likely drop tremendously!
I read somewhere about using something on my cpanel called phpmyadmin, and then just selecting optimising.
phpMyAdmin at cPanel will possibly ask for your SQL username and password from your wp-config.php file in order to get to your database, and there is where you should “Select All” and do an export as a backup before doing anything else. I have never used the optimize option there, but you should be safe doing so just as long as you first have a backup before doing anything anywhere at all.
Thread Starter
ovbg
(@ovbg)
Hi there, thanks for the great answer.
So, I have PHPMyAdmin access, and I tried to backup my entire database via the Export (clicking my database, then selecting all items, then export), but the file it exports is only 142kb large. This is of course may too small since my database is over 230mb.
What could I be doing wrong?
Thread Starter
ovbg
(@ovbg)
Ah, think I have solved the backup issue. I was backing up the wrong database… Opps.
Anyway, tried the phoMayAdmin optimisation, and I can’t see any difference. Will try the above mentioned plug-in now.
Thread Starter
ovbg
(@ovbg)
Ok, Optimised my wordpress website with the excellent WP Clean Up, and it basically halved it from 234mb, down to 122mb.
That is great.
Site is still slow though. Would others agree that this is slow?
http://www.eyeondemand.com
and especially browsing the forums at http://www.eyeondemand.com/forums
You have a lot going on there with many images to load and the cookie popup, and then the “New Forum” announcement keeps popping up with every new click even after going to the forum. I recently saw something somewhere about setting a site to only load its “above-the-fold” content when someone first arrives and then adding to it as they scroll or whatever, but I do not recall where I saw that. Also, I use the simpler, unobtrusive UK Cookie Consent:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?type=term&q=Cookie+Consent
At least for myself, I think giving visitors what they actually want and need takes precedent over what I might want them to see or do.
Thread Starter
ovbg
(@ovbg)
Thanks for the fantastic observations leejosepho!
Technically, the cookie one should only be once, the first time a site is visited, but I agree the popup for the forum should disappear when actually on the forum. Will be looking into that one definitely!
It would be great on the forums if when people loaded new topics etc, only that window where the forum itself actually updated, as everything else is the same. Anyone know if this is possible?
Perhaps if I had smaller 125x ads on the side in that forum, it would speed up. Can’t get rid of ads entirely, as that is important to pay the bills. And I would like them to be less intrusive (Personally, I like ads no more than anyone else), so if it is the ads, I’m going to have to work out a compromise somehow. But the forum pages just seem so slow to me even with the ads as the main bulk has no no real graphics.
Thread Starter
ovbg
(@ovbg)
Re: the Forums pop-in, I use a shortcode which I put in a widget so it appears on every page. Is there a shortcode or addition to the shortcode that I can use to not allow it to pop up on any /forums/ pages?
I use a shortcode which I put in a widget so it appears on every page.
I know only enough to be dangerous at times, but I think I would (in a Child Theme) make a custom page template for forums pages and give the sidebar a custom designation, then go to CSS and add ‘display:none;’ to that specific widget within that custom sidebar designation. For example: I believe something like <?php get_sidebar('forum');?> in a page template would call a custom ‘sidebar-forum.php’ file…and then I would figure things out from there. But since I have never actually done that, my approach here might be completely wrong! There might be a simpler way to check for ‘is_forum’ and then ‘display:none;’ that specific widget.
