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      Which Plugins Are Slowing Down My Site?
      by Mitchell Wischmann on March 9, 2012
      Plugin Performance Analysis

      Are you trying to get your site to load faster? Besides implementing these tips to reduce load time and setting up W3 Total Cache for WordPress, what else can you do?

      Many times, plugins can be the cause of a site slowdown. But how do I figure out which plugin it is? Thankfully, there’s an awesome new plugin that will tell you just that: P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler).

      Just install the plugin through your WordPress Add New Plugins menu option. You’ll then go to Tools -> P3 Plugin Profiler to run the analysis. Click on Start Scan, then Auto Scan. The plugin will scan a few pages of your site and determine how each plugin is affecting your load time.

      You’ll then be presented with a lovely pie chart, showing you which plugins are slowing down your site. You don’t need to worry about the smaller pieces of the pie; concentrate on the big pieces for now.

      Now that you know which plugins are slowing down your site, you can begin looking for alternatives that don’t affect performance.

      Which plugins effected your load time the most? Let us know in the comments.

      Mitchell Wischmann is a Savvy Blogging contributing writer. He provides technical support at My Frugal Tech, and is the author of Frugal Finders as well.

: Leave a Comment

  • Renee Qpon Junkie on March 09, 2012 at 9:17 am
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    It was my Onswipe running at 27%. Should I find a different option for this?
  • lynn @ Maven of Savin' on March 09, 2012 at 6:08 pm
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    THANKS :) I also do find it a bit ironic we need a “plug-in” to tell us what plug-ins are slowing us down – LOL!
    • Beth @ In Good Cents on March 09, 2012 at 6:33 pm
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      Lynn, I thought that was a bit ironic too, LOL!
    • Beth @ In Good Cents on March 09, 2012 at 6:36 pm
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      Yikes, plugins I least expected were the highest. I’m shocked Gravity Forms was my number one on both of my sites. And The Events Calendar was right there with it. Since both only work on one page of the site, I didn’t expect them to be effecting the overall.
  • Charles Specht on March 10, 2012 at 7:16 pm
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    Very helpful article. I’ve been wondering if I have too many plugins running. Thanks!
  • Kimberly at Rubber Chicken Madness on March 11, 2012 at 10:14 am
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    Turns out my highest use was Multilevel Navigation which I had tinkered with, decided not to use, and forgot to deactivate!
  • Charity - The Coupon Snob on March 16, 2012 at 3:22 pm
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    SO HELPFUL! Thanks! I actually try to use as few plug-ins as possible, and my two biggest perps were Google Analytics and Pretty Link Lite, but both were only causing a drag of .07 something of a sec. My overall load time was still .334

    So…what is a good load time to aim for?

    • Mitchell @ My Frugal Tech on June 21, 2012 at 1:36 pm
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      The load time widely depends on the content of your page. I use Pingdom Tools to check the load time of sites, and I aim for a load time of about 3 seconds or less.