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Optimizing Your WordPress Database For A Better Performance

I’d like to ask you a question or 2; have you ever waked up one day and discovered that something is wrong with your website? Or have you ever notice your blog/ website or forum showing “500 Internal Server Error or 403 forbidden Error?

internal-server-error

If your blog is running slow or your blog always get 500 Internal Server Error then you’re driving away those valuable customers and loyal readers or even people (first timers) coming from search engines.

Must Read: CHANGING YOUR WORDPRESS USERNAME/ LOGIN NAME

Our blog runs slow or shows Internal Server Error (at times) because of database misuse and or too much plugins installed… And once you start getting too much Internal Server Error or slow performance, your hosting provider will have no choice but to knock your door and suggest you migrate to a VPS package. But do you know that you can actually avoid all that by optimizing your database? Don’t worry, we are going to make this post as interesting and comprehensive as possible. So are you ready to do this with me and make your website more faster? Then let’s go

OPTIMIZING YOUR DATABASE FOR A BETTER PERFORMANCE

If you have YARPP and Commentluv plugin installed on your wordpress blog then you need this even more. We need this to speed up our blog and making it user and browser friendly…

First off go to your control panel (C-panel) >>> Scroll to your “Databases” section and click “phpMyAdmin”. You are now in your “phpMyAdmin” section where we will work on our WordPress database.

Now click the Database that you want to optimize

Please note that your databases is located at the left side of the panel (see the screenshot below)

phpmyadmin database

Have you seen it? Click the database you want to optimize to take you to the database table. Now if you study your table carefully, you will discover that the “overhead” has some figures. Those figures needs to be optimized (wiped out). Now how do we optimize this?

Scroll down and click “Check tables having overhead” have you clicked it? Now click the drop down menu beside it and choose “Optimize table”

wordpress database

Once you have successfully optimize your WordPress tables, It will look like the screen shot below

mysql wordpress database

Note: Before doing anything with your database it is good to do a backup, incase you miss press a button, you can easily revert back.

Now your site will be 3 times faster that it usually is but to make our wordpress site even more faster like the first day you installed it, download this plugin called “WP Optimizer” you can download it here

Now let’s get to know what WP Optimize does from the horses words;

Every time you save a new post or pages, WordPress creates a revision of that post or page. If you edit a post 6 times you might have 5 copy of that post as revisions. Imagine if your post or pages are long and big. It is a huge number of bytes that’s on your MySQL overhead. Now WP-Optimize allows you to optimize and shrink your posts table by removing not necessary post revisions from the database. As example, if you have a post which is approximately 100KB data and you have 5 revisions of that post, the total space wasted is about 500KB. And if you have 100 posts similar to it, you have 50MB database space wasted.

You need to optimize your database today to prevent error and wasted space. And remember, your blog is your business don’t play with it. 🙂

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I’ll ask you again; have you ever had a database problem? What measures did you take to correct it? Please I’d like to read your answers.

Do you have comments, questions and thoughts that you’d like to share? Then please do use the comment box below. Remember that your comment and thoughts are highly welcomed and much appreciated.

Do you like this post? Do click the like button, share us and recommend us to friend because you’ll never know which of your friends need it the most.

22 thoughts on “Optimizing Your WordPress Database For A Better Performance”

  1. Hi Babanature,

    That was very well explained, and something that all of us keen needing from time to time. 🙂

    Yes indeed, having the internal server errors and when you site just won’t work is a common problem with most of us I think and each one of us keep trying out various things, depending on where we gained that knowledge from – whether some friend’s blogs, or reading it online. However, the problem still comes up off and on and we DO lose precious readers or comments that would have come during that time.

    I do have WP Optimizer and one needs to keep clearing that, and it surely does help in the speed of the blog too. However, I’ve never done anything with the C-Panel on my own as I am too scared to spoil things if I go wrong! I generally leave that to my husband who takes better care, so I would certainly be trying out your way and hope it works too. 🙂

    Thanks for sharing this with us. 🙂

    1. Hello Harleena,
      The best thing any blogger can do to his or her blog is maintaining it and making it user friendly. It is nice to see that you also have the WP Optimizer but hey! since your husband is doing the database cleanup his self, it is better to leave it to the men 😉 except you feel like exploring your C-panel more yourself 😉 . i would say that from what i’v read that you truly take care of your blog and i’ll advice you to do keep it up. Thanks for the comment and do have a stress free day ahead…

  2. Akismet rocks! Actually I was thinking about CommentLuv plugin but then I give up this idea. Not that I’m selfish or something but as the practice shows most people come to your blog just to drop a comment and not even get deeper in the topic… Haha, no fears, i dont comment just for the link, I like what you do and your cool ideas) Great job!

    1. Hello Evan,
      Akismet rocks but it also use up much database as commentluv. The best option to do is always optimize once every month or 2wice a month to keep your space intact and making your site as fast as normal. I know that most people come to your blog just for link sake but it is good to give them more reason to come back to explore more. thanks for the comment Evan

  3. I once had a problem with my hosting plan for misuse of database and excessive use of bandwidth. i was ban till i’ll rectify the problem. so what did was to pay a professional to rectify it for me and after all the hustle, my hosting provider enable my site back. Asuming you post this sooner, i wouldn’t pay a professional. i’d have done it my self… 😉 But now i know know how to maintain it thanks to you. you’re the best bro

  4. Hi Babanature,

    I recently learned how to do this as I was going through all the troubles I had with my blog recently. Prior to that though I was told to install a plug-in called WP-Optimize and it did the exact same thing. I know there are people who are very leery of the cPanel. I’m not but the database part was new to me. I wouldn’t call myself a pro by any means but boy have I learned a lot.

    Great steps though and probably worth saving another plug-in but it takes longer to go this route. It did for me but I did it both ways just to be sure.

    Great share and you’re right! When you bog down your database tables then your troubles will begin.

    ~Adrienne

    1. Hello Adrienne,
      From the look of things, you really did know your way around. WP-Optimize is such a great plugin because it shows you the errors your database is going through to know when to optimize it. i am just so in-love with the plugin. The best thing i’ll advice a blogger is to know his/ her way around their c-panel and databases. Thanks for your worm contribution and do have a stress free weekend Adrienne 🙂

  5. Hi babanature,

    That is a very good information here. I have to save this post and go through that again.

    I wanted to ask you, how often should we change our Wodpress login (username and password)? And do you recommend that WP-Optimize plugin?

    1. Hello Sylviane,
      It is best to change your password once a week or if one week is too hard for you, you can make it once every 2 weeks (but a week is the best option). Yes! you strongly need the WP-Optimizer plugin for maintenance of your databases. As long as you use commentluv, Akismet, and other plugin that works with your database you surely need the plugin.
      it is also advisable to clean your databases every once or twice a month for a better performance.

      1. Hi again, dear!

        Wow, I just installed WP-Optimize and love it already! It’s a revelation to me. I wanted to ask you what are “Auto draft posts” and “post revisions” and should I clean those too?

        By the way I do have a password protection software, do I still need to change my WP login?

        Sorry for all those questions, but your post was a revelation to me 🙂

        Thanks bunches!

        1. Hello Sylviane,
          Welcome back… Post revisions are your drafted posts stored in your wordpress database. it causes unnecessary space and it is advisable to mark all boxes and click the Process Button. once you do this, you’ll notice the speed of your blog increasing.
          If you believe the password protection software is active and can always alert you when threats attacks, then it’s ok… I love your questions and i’ll say thanks for asking.

  6. I don’t like the post Babanature but i love it.

    I didn’t know about this before and I’m going to check out mine now. I don’t have YARPP, but i have comment luv.

    Thanks for sharing this my man, off to work.

    BTW: Shoot me a call via 08069042613 lets discourse and know each other more.
    Waiting for your call.

  7. Hi Babanature,

    What a coincidence getting to your blog today. My blog was running slow and I found out it had to do with CommentLuv.
    I do have WP optimizer and was wondering why my blog was taking too long to download. Now, I don’t usually fool around in my C panel, but I had a talk with my friend and tried to remove something due to CommentLuv and it worked!

    Indeed if one uses CommentLuv, you do need to have WPOptimizer.

    I also was looking through your comments and see that Sylviane asked you how many times must we change our password. Read your answer and just put a reminder on my computer to do that. Thanks so much,
    Donna

    1. Hello Donna,
      WP-Optimizer is one essential plugin for a blogger that uses wordpress blog. because they are lots of plugins that can cause harm to your databases if not monitored properly, so with the WP-Optimizer, you’ll know when to optimize your databases.
      Ya to prevent bad business (hackers) it is good and advisable to always change your password so you can always be on a safer side. Thanks for the comment and do ave a gracious weekend.

  8. Hey bro,
    I just did the exact thing you explained the other day. I spend so much time doing database stuffs so this is pretty straight forward. It’s a great tut to help a lot of people.

    Thanks for taking time to publish

    1. Hello Enstine,
      That’s great to know… If you’re using plugins that messes up the C-panel, it is nice cleaning (optimizing) your databases 2wice a months for a better site performance. Thanks for the kind comment and do have a blessed weekend

  9. Hello Babanature, I have actually optimized my database repeatedly, I have optimized my site but i get database error everytime i publish a new post for about 30 seconds and then its back to normal again… Any ideas?

    1. You will have to optimize and repair your databases, by doing it manually or by using a plugin called wp-optimize. but i will advice you to do it manually, and to do it manually, read my other post for step by step guide

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