Anne Truitt Zelenka

This blog started slowing down in the past couple of weeks. I tried dropping tables I didn’t need and optimizing the rest, but it was still sluggish, even using phpMyAdmin to access it. I’ve solved the problem, but in case anyone else runs into something similar, I wanted to share my experience.

Don’t bother calling GoDaddy support. First, they will blame it on WordPress. Then, when you tell them that phpMyAdmin is slow also, they will try to convince you that 30 seconds is an acceptable query time on a database that’s less than 10MB in size.

Instead of wasting time with them, just make a new database for your blog and fill it up with your data. Not only will that reload your data in a more optimized fashion, it will move your database to one of GoDaddy’s newer (and presumably less overloaded) database servers. I went from mysql103 to mysql249. Don’t tell me that higher isn’t better when it comes to the number of your database server. I know that it is. Just like I know that shaking your mouse around when a web page isn’t loading will make it load faster.

Here’s how to create a new WordPress database, fill it up with your blog data, and point your blog at it:

1. In the hosting control panel, create a new MySQL database. Give it a different name than your other one, of course.
2. Export your blog data. Essentially, this is the same as making a backup consisting of a humongous SQL file that will both create the tables you need and fill them with data. Use these instructions from the WordPress codex or, even easier, use this backup plugin.
3. Import the blog data into your new database. If you don’t have shell access (does anyone on GoDaddy? not me) you’ll have to import it using phpMyAdmin. You can upload files, but not if they’re any bigger than 2MB in size. I divided mine into chunks and imported it piece by piece.
4. Edit your wp-config.php file to point to the new database. Change the database name, user, password, and host. You can get the new hostname from the hosting management panel.

I hung up on Nate, the GoDaddy support person when he tried to tell me that 30 seconds was an acceptable time for a database query. “None of the queries we tried took longer than 30 seconds so your database seems to be fine,” he said to me. Nate, do you think I’m stupid? Do you think my readers are going to wait 30 seconds for my blog to come up? I might, but I’m in a distinct minority in the commitment I bring to accessing this blog.

Before hanging up, I did tell Nate I’d find a new host, and I will, especially now I know how easy it is to move my blog data into a new database. If anyone has any good web host suggestions–especially one that will give me ssh/telnet access–please let me know.