16 Feb 2023
**A slow WordPress website can be quite frustrating** both for yourself when you want to add new content and for your visitors. Let’s discuss some common causes of a slow WordPress website and their solutions:
1. Slow WordPress website due to plugins
Having too many plugins can significantly slow down your website, especially on a budget web hosting package.
How many plugins are too many?
Having more than 8 plugins is not recommended, unless they are very simple and lightweight. Each plugin loads JavaScript requests in the header, CSS, or PHP code that can significantly slow down the loading time.
**Solution:** Deactivate and remove unnecessary plugins.
2. Slow WordPress website due to the hosting provider
Sometimes, hosting providers overcrowd their servers with too many websites. For WordPress, it’s important to use a good hosting package as there are many PHP scripts being loaded.
If you have a shared hosting package, consider upgrading to a VPS or business package depending on your needs. Pay attention to the processing power your website can use from the server, not just the amount of data or disk space you get.
Using a caching plugin can help, but having a good hosting provider and package is crucial.
**WPbeveiligen** hosts websites on a fast server and ensures there is enough capacity to keep the website working well.
3. Slow WordPress website due to hack attempts
As mentioned on this website, various scripts attempt to crack WordPress websites. These scripts send numerous requests per minute to your server, targeting files such as login.php and others.
All these requests can overload the server and slow down your website.
**Good WordPress security** ensures that files are not accessible to these scripts or that there is a maximum number of requests allowed. Plugins like WordFence can block requests based on their frequency and IP addresses.
4. Slow WordPress website due to spam
If your website is hacked by a virus or script, and it results in a file on the server sending dozens of emails per minute, it can significantly slow down your website.
**It’s important** to remove the spam file and secure your website to prevent it from happening again.
5. Slow WordPress website due to missing files
Surprisingly, files called in the code that don’t exist on the server can slow down the website. The website waits for a response from these files, hindering the loading of other files.
**Ensure that all JS files, PHP includes, and CSS files** have the correct path.
6. Slow WordPress website due to large images
Sometimes the cause of a slow WordPress website is not technical or complicated. Images in the text or theme that appear small in size but are actually 3-5 MB can slow down the website during loading.
**Solution:** Optimize your images and ensure they are appropriately sized for web use.
Using online speed tests and experience, experts can quickly identify what’s causing your website to be slow and find solutions to address it.
If your WordPress website is still slow despite following these tips, consider contacting a professional to help you resolve the issue.
