Wordpress is widely used by webmasters and web developers. It's more than used for blog purpose nowadays, one day you found you are operating a big site and sometimes hard to load a page. Now you should consider to lose some weight for your wordpress system. This article picks up the main points you should consider when trying to lose weight for wordpress.

Wordpress Hosting Choice

Web hosting is definitely your primary consideration before trying to optimize anything on your wordpress site. The hosting server performance and network connectivity will determine how much you can optimize on website direcly. You can not make much improvement with a bad server. We highly suggest webhostinghub(www.webhostinghub.com) for small to medium size wordpress site based their state of the art server and data center structures. Their group provide data center service on both east and west coasts with max speed zone enabled. The spotlight is they provide real no overselling service which is confirmed by most users. Their single hosting solution is deeply optimized for wordpress script so the best performance and security is guanranteed.

View webhostinghub service by this promotional link http://www.webhostinghub.com

Wordpress Weight Loss on Theme

A nice looking theme will add score to your wordpress site quality. But make sure you get the theme from a reputable vendor. A good wordpress theme is not only on layouts but also professional in code design. Below are few tips on how to lose weight for your wordpress theme

Header and footer. By default wordpress header file comes with lots of lines for various purpose such as bog version detection, pingback engines etc. However, we actually don't need most of these because they have no use for our blog site so we recommend to delete it. To simplify the process, we collected the following codes that we can add to functions.php file under theme folder.

<?php
remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator');
remove_action('wp_head', 'rsd_link');
remove_action('wp_head', 'wlwmanifest_link');
remove_action('wp_head', 'index_rel_link');
remove_action('wp_head', 'parent_post_rel_link', 10, 0);
remove_action('wp_head', 'start_post_rel_link', 10, 0);
remove_action('wp_head', 'adjacent_posts_rel_link_wp_head', 10, 0);
remove_action('wp_head', 'rel_canonical');
remove_action('wp_head', 'feed_links', 2);
remove_action('wp_head', 'feed_links_extra', 3);
?>

Another practice on header/footer file is various php codes for static contents creation. For example home title, meta keywords, copyright words etc. We can put the actual description there directly instead using php codes to quote from admin panel settings. Fewer queries will be executed on our website and better loading speed is expected.

Get rid of code comments. There're lots of code comments in place for most themes. It's good for designers to trouble shoot issues since they know how codes being organized. However it's useless to end users. We can save lots of space by deleting those comments. But please keep in mind, do this carefully and test it from different explorers after you made the change, sometimes it may cause problem. For example the first code comments on top in header.php can not be deleted.

Compress js/css. Your wordpress theme might include multiple css/js files with big size. It's absolutely bad for faster loading requirements. We recommend to install WP minify plugin for prefessional compression over css and js files with no real effect on page layout.

Wordpress Weight Loss on Plugin

We always have to install various wordpress plugins to achieve different purpose. The numbers of plugins may go up quickly as time goes by. Before we consider a plugin, think twice to see if we really need it or not and if there's alternative solution. One more plugin to our wordpress site means extra weight added. We highly suggest working with source files as more as possible. In this way you can get rid of lots of plugins.

Wordpress Weight Loss on Picture

Picture always takes lots of space and most of the time it's the main size on our wordpress site. Especially when you operate a photograph gallery site with hundreds or thousands of pictures, you have to deeply optimize your pictures or else users will find it hard to load up your site. Till present there're two solutions to reduce your picture size

If you use photoshop for picture design, make sure to select the "save as web use" option, it can be quickly done by press "Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S" keys. The web use picture size is at least half of regularly saved version.

Use picture compression plugin. There's a famous wordpress plugin called "WPSmush.it" which is prefessional in picture resizing. The process is done when you upload a picture to your site. The best of the best is there's no color loss in using this software.

Wordpress Weight Loss on Database

When we write blog posts or revise an exisitng article, wordpress will auto save a duplicated version in database. Generally speaking, each post will receive at least one revision entry in database. Sometimes you might be surprised about your database size because you haven't really added that many contents. Those duplicated contents will cause low database efficiency and bring problems for daily maintenance. We use WP-optimize plugin to clear out such duplicated contents every few periods. This plugin will not only clear out all post revisions as well as spam comments and do database optimize. It's only working from admin panel so it won't cause frontend load problem at all.

Every blog receives spam attacks. Take our blog for instance, we receive 20+ daily spam comments and we always have to clean up every day. Finally, we installed facebook comment plugin to override the default one. Surprisely, spam comments almost reduced to zero. Highly suggested service for everyone who like to reduce spam comments.

When you plan to host a website, you have multiple options to deal with. The primary task is to find a decent web hosting provider. From a recent survey, many people prefer to a local web hosting service other than a famous oversea provider. Why is that? We have researched a lot with interviews to multiple people and finally we concluded a list of points why a local web hosting service matters.

Benefits of Local Web Hosting

The primary advantage of local hosting service would be its visibility. Unlike any other remote service, you know exactly how the company operates and how people talk about their service. You also have the opportunity to talk with their company staff face to face. Following is a list of benefits you can receive from local web hosting service

• Visibility. Not just the company office, you also got the chance to learn about the data center facilities. Many hosting companies are powered by multiple data centers nowadays, you can pick up the best one that fulfill your needs by evaluating them one by one. You can also talk to their representative by face to face communication to clear out your doubts with their service. You will see how their people work at the place and all other stuff you want to know about.
• Better safety. Because of the above, you can build special relationship with their company and you may get a dedicated customer manager to work with your hosting space. In case there's any problem, you can be notified at the earliest time and get account backup in short time.
• Flexible payment. You don't have to worry if your host will accept USD dollar or CNY because your local hosting company is doing business at the same place. You can pay via any available method and you can even go to their office to pay the service directly.
• Better speed. The biggest advantage in using a local hosting is the guaranteed speed. Because your website server is located in your local area, there's no more routings to be concerned. Website can be loaded by most possible fast speed. It's quite important if you're promoting a service to local clients.
• Better support. The ever best support is expected from local web hosting since you have direct access to their company. In case their online support is not available when you need urgent support, you can go to their work place directly for assistance. Normally you will receive a dedicated support number from customer manager, he will pick up your call right away if you're in trouble with their service.

As we see, above benefits for local web hosting are not available for any other remote hosting service. It's extremely helpful if you're running a local business and would like to promote it to everyone in that area.

Weakness of Local Web Hosting

After learnt the benefits of local hosting service, is there any weakness we need to know about? Certainly there is. The primary weakness is they're only best if you just want to serve your local area business. But if you're going to promote your service to more and more people from other place and even oversea markets, a local hosting can not help because they don't have oversea data centers. Also, you might pay more for the service because you have limited selections in that area. Although it's not a real disadvantage because you can receive extra personalized service, people still would like to save money as much as possible.

As from above comparison of both benefits and weakness for local web hosting service, it's perfect choice for better support and performance. Although you can purchase hosting service anywhere, a local provider will send you more personal and friendly service.

There is a specific entry in DNS zone called "wildcard DNS" which is configured as "*.domain.com" format. It's popularly used by most big websites that may produce lots of child sites. How wildcard DNS work and what would be its pros and cons? This article provides a list of comparison and explanation.

How to use wildcard DNS? It's nothing but a simple dns record of your domain name. The initial purpose is to redirect any non-existent sub domain name to your main site. It's normally setup as default by your domain dns provider. However, in order to let this entry work as expected, you need a dedicated IP for your domain and configure "*.domain.com" DNS A record to this dedicated IP address. Once done, whenever people request any non-existent sub domain they will be brought your your main website.

Pros of Wildcard DNS

Save website visitor. Just think you have a sub domain name called "boys.website.com" with all related topics on this site. But website users might mistype the site address to "boy.website.com". If there's no wildcard dns configured for this domain then people will get page not found error. Based user experience analysis, most people will just close the window unless they really have to logon your site. On the other hand, if you have wildcard dns setup with proper guidance on main site, visitors will get what they needed with no tricks to play with.

Fast website setup. Wildcard dns is widely used because it provides fast solutions for website deployment. For those big websites like wordpress.com, there's huge daily or hourly registration. What we experienced is you will get a new site ready in seconds as long as the name is not being used. The process is 100% automatic with no manual audit. It's all the effort by wildcard dns record. If we setup those sub domain names manually one by one, not to mention the needed man power, there's at least 30 minutes for DNS propagation, means people have to wait at least half an hour to work with their sites. It's absolutely not acceptable.

SEO practice. Under some circumstance, sub domain names perform better than sub directories. Especially you have a specific topic to work with, a sub domain will gain better search engine weight. Sub domain is considered different site from main site so you can easily create different contents under multiple sub domain sites then link back to main site for link building purpose. From the early times, multiple sub domain ability is one of SEO rules over a site. By wildcard dns, you got the ability to create unlimited sub domains as long as your server is allowed.

Cons of Wildcard DNS

Regardless of above advantages of wildcard dns, it always brings problems to people. The typical issue is DNS hacking. See below for example and solutions.

Recently one of our friends' website got punised by search engie. However, this site has been doing well and strictly followed the google optimization guidelines. There's not a single incorrect onsite or offsite operation as he can tell. Finally, we I do "site:domain.com" from google bar, it returns lots of unrelated topics under some sub domains he's not awared of for example "porn.oo.domain.com" or "casino.oo.domain.com" or any other illegal contents. From DNS checking, a wildcard dns is added for that domain and pointed to an IP address he did not know of. Undoubtedly, someone hacked into his DNS server or domain account to make the change.

So what's the solution and how to prevent such issue happening again? The simple solution is to remove the wildcard DNS and probably disable this service if possible. However, you have to work harder in order to recover from search engine punishment. Sometimes you can do nothing but to change for a new domain. Here're some tips on how to avoid your domain wildcard dns to be abused.

Get a safe dns provider. It's not new to hear about dns server being hacked nowadays. You must find a good dns service to configure your domain name. Urgent recovery service should be provided in case there's any unauthorized change in your dns file.

Tighten your domain account. Set strong login password and change it every few periods. Keep those credentials in safe place and don't leak to anybody.

Don't sell your domain DNS. Someone might request you to add a wildcard dns to point a specific ip address at a good price. You might find it hard to refuse because you have been trying to be profitable on your site. However, don't do it unless you know exactly what the person is and what he's going to do with your domain. Mistake from the beginning will bring disaster to your entire site property.