My site is too dang slow!

Yes, yes, yes... I know the speed of Ricambi America is too dang slow. I have upgraded servers, changed hosts, etc. etc. It's still too slow for product searching. So, I have made a few changes and we'll see if it gets any better:

1. I banned GoogleBot and GigaBot from my website.
2. The search functionality has been changed. Now, in the main search box, it will only query Ferrari part numbers. If you key "108947" and hit search, it'll fly to the right part number. If you type "Floor Mats", you'll get nothing. To search by description, you'll need to use the advanced search functionality.

After playing with it a bit today, the raw search on part numbers seems pretty dang fast. So, if you have a parts book or know your numbers... it should be a gigantic improvement in performance.

Hope this makes sense -- and more importantly, I hope it makes your shopping experience more enjoyable.


-Daniel
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its always been fine for me, now its just getting better



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Hi Daniel
Make sure that the fields you are allowing searches on have been set to Indexed in the database.

 

i am certain that the new ss exhaust shout speed it up a bit...you know, breath new life!

 

Very good point. This system is based on osCommerce which has very bloated queries. My database size is certainly not to big for the DB engine, it's just too big for the way OsCommerce queries are natively structured. I have been working through them slowly to create appropriate indices and streamline the number of joins.

 

You may have already looked into these other possible performance tweaks, which include:

- An optimal caching scheme whereby certain data is dumped to a server-side cache so that the server just hits the cache instead of the database.

- Paginating certain dynamic menus, such as the one on "advanced_search.php". Assuming this is dynamically generated. You might segment the "Ferrari Model" menu into multiple menus so the server doesn't have to populate that big menu each time the page is served up. Instead, the menu could be paginated by levels of the heirarchy. For example, a user may select Portfield Brakes in the first menu, which then evokes a new menu to be displayed containing 328, 348, 355, etc...
Or, you might consider a multi-column product browser like the one I designed for Armstrong flooring: http://gieger.com/site/web_9.html

- Improved usability. You might consider writing a few simple test scenarios and observe a few people trying complete the tasks. This will often open your eyes to things you never imagined an help you identify some potential design flaws in your site's information architecture. A highly usable website has a direct correlation to a user's perception of the site speed/performance.

...Just some thoughts.
Good luck!