Can the template increase the loading time of the site?

[salvyy]

Hi,

My site was built with WordPress. Very recently I had it redesigned. The problem is that now it takes a long time to download. I have spoken with a web designer who checked my site and said that after it was rebuilt, the template that was created included a lot of hard coding. Can this be the reason why my site now takes a long time to load? The hard coding factor?

Thank you for your help.

• Sal

P.S.: FYI the site only has a few plug-ins and the server is a good one.

[soltec]

There are lots of factors which can affect the loading time of a web page, without a URL I cannot give you an indication of where the performance issue is likely to be.

With a url I can tell you which areas the issues are caused by i.e. creation of page at server, poor css, e.t.a.

It is very unlikely (but I can't rule out completely) that hard coding will cause performance issues. Hard code does cause problems when making changes or updates to a site.

[EGOL]

Your redesign guy could have used enormous-size images in the design.  He could have added code that takes time to execute.  There could be calls from other websites for ads or widgets or images that are slow.

[activitysuper]

Depends on db requests per page and all sorts of stuff.

Anyway SEOMOZ recommend these guys and wordpress backs them as well - http://wpengine.com/

Check it out

[DeptAgency]

Google Page Speed provides very helpfull information on what factors are import for your site. It determines what is slowing your pages down, and what you can do to fix it. It also distinguishes between various degrees of importance. You can check out the speed test at: https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/.

Good luck!

[salvyy]

Thank you for informing me about WpEngine. That must be the right solution for making WordPress sites faster and more reliable.

All best.

[salvyy]

Hi,

Thank you for the response. I've hired a new web designer with expertise in WordPress who will take care of the factors  you have mentioned.

All best.

[mytouchoftech]

I saw a site that was redesigned and then became incredibly slow.  Their issue was that there were a number of widgets that loaded a bunch of different Javascript and css files.  There was also an issue where the site wouldn't load until all the images (and there were many dozen) on the page loaded.  I use Chrome's developer tools to see all the elements that are loaded on the page. It's very useful in determining what's taking the most time to load.

[salvyy]

Hi,

I think that is exactly what happened: a bunch of new Javascript and css files.

Thank you.