Truthfully, I don’t know exactly yet. But I have contacted my host’s admin, and we’ve exchanged several emails to get things working again.
What I found though, was quite interesting. I have installed over 45 plugins, four or five separate javascripts (Payperpost, Stats, Alexa, etc.), and used a theme that required extra resources (I think), and each page had to have 10 posts on it.
Though I didn’t use all of the plugins, at the busiest times, I was using over 27 (by my last count). Given the other features, I think that they may have been partially responsible for my server’s recent slow down. Coupled with the fact that other sites on the server have been increasingly popular, it is quite likely that my demand on the server was just placing too much of a strain. I also found that mod_gzip and the linkworth plugin were both causing problems.
For the time being, I’ve taken a very strict line:
- cut out all but the most essential 12 plugins;
- stripped out all unnecessary linkages in the sidebar;
- switched to a much less-intensive theme;
- cut down the number of posts on a page to five;
- gotten some help with mod_gzip;
- and removed the rogue plugin from LinkWorth
Jason at Dreamhost has been quite helpful, but it will be a few days before my server usage drops observably. My stats showed that I was using about 30 CPU minutes per day.
I stupidly removed the Google Stats Tracking code, now I have to put that back. I may also switch some features back on. I’m planning to move to a Dreamhost PS in the near future which should give things a bit of a kick, I hope! But till then, it will be plain vanilla InvestorBlogger, with a little chocolate sauce; no more Double Chocolate Chip!