redsand

Hi @laura83,

I can provide a bit of insight into site speed issues. (I’m the author and lead developer of WP-SpamShield.) Speed is something especially important to us. 🙂

WordPress site slowdowns are most often caused by undiagnosed PHP errors, configuration issues, memory issues, database issues, missing modules, old mySQL versions, and old PHP versions.

I took a look at your site, and from the site headers, it seems you’re using PHP 5.5. for anyone who wants a faster site, the first thing I’d recommend is to upgrade PHP. There are only three currently supported branches of PHP: 5.6, 7.0, and 7.1. Since you’re using 5.5, and it is no longer supported by the PHP dev team, I’d recommend at least upgrading to PHP 5.6. There should be zero compatibility issues. There are some minor speed improvements over 5.5. However, if you want a major improvement, upgrade to at least 7.0. PHP 7 is over 2x the speed of PHP 5.6 and earlier.

Your web host will usually have instuctions in their support pages about how to change PHP versions. It does not usually require any kind of change to the software installed, just configuration changes. If the support pages don’t give you instructions, or they don’t make sense, just submit a support request to them.

Another thing high on the list to check is that your site has the MySQLi extension installed. (It’s what manages the functionality of MySQL databases.) Some PHP installs only have the older MySQL extension, and it’s significantly slower. (Even with some newer PHP versions, we have seen the rare occasion where a random host has disabled MySQL and added MySQL. SMH.)

Database bloat / size of your WP database. An easy way to check for potential database bloat is to check the size of the DB. If it is excessively large, then there is a good chance it’s got some bloat and needs to be cleaned up. For example, a medium sized site with a fairly large membership base would not usually even go above 500 MB. In general, small site should be under 100MB. (If well-optimized, potentially much lower.)

You can check a lot of this by installing our debugging plugin, RS System Diagnostic.

You also will want to check your site for hidden errors using WP_DEBUG, WordPress’ built-in debugging function.

We have a WordPress debugging guide that may help you with this and with some fixes for these issues as well – located here.

If you have any questions RE: WP-SpamShield, feel free to submit a support request, and we’ll be happy to help.

I hope this info helps! 🙂

– Scott

@tradesouthwestgmailcom

So who is Red Sand Media Group and where does this warning message come from? I believe that is the most concerning question, that I would have.

Um, we’re the developers of WP-SpamShield.

And then finally, I don’t care about the patches and what your people consider an _answer_ to the questions that you say were already addressed… I am looking for the validity and the purpose to post something on a Dashboard that has no real message value or source tag indicator.

The validity comes from the fact that we’re helping inform users that their site has a serious security vulnerability that needs to be addressed. We’ve always had a heavy focus on security. Anti-spam and security cannot be separated.

It could be that I have been using WP-Spamshield for years and this is the first time I have ever [noticed] ANY messages.

WordPress zero-day vulnerabilities (aka unpatched vulnerabilities) don’t come a long that often. If you keep your site up to date, and there are no zero-day vulnerabilities, you’d never see a notice.

I would not have to wonder why a discouraging message has taken over my personal space.

I’m sorry you felt discouraged by it, but that’s not its purpose. It’s purpose is to let a user know that there is a security vulnerability in their current WordPress install. That’s a serious issue that can lead to your site being hacked, so the issue needs to be addressed. If the site is not on the latest version, then normally upgrading will help take care of it. When you have a zero-day, then other measures will need to be taken.

We’re doing that to help people…I would hope that comes across. If you’re in danger, wouldn’t you want a friend to warn you? That’s all we’re trying to do.

Try toning down the presence or be a bit more concise on WHY the message is appearing. I love WP-Spamshield but if I had known that is where it was from—and why—then I would not be here

Right…and what I’m saying is that we’ve already done this. That’s already been taken care of. We’ve literally done exactly what you’re asking.

Excellent advice, @davdebcom! We would agree.

It does look like the error message comes from WP-SpamShield.

@edbras It looks like your site is using W3 Total Cache – That will definitely cause problems. In the past it was quite good but we no longer recommend it, as it’s gone downhill in the last couple years. It definitely mangles a lot of JS and CSS, and we recently marked it as not compatible with WP-SpamShield.

I can also recommend this troubleshooting step as well to maximize compatibility with caching.

Let us know if we can be of any further help to either of you.

– Scott