In recent years, the good folks at WordPress have made it easier to use their free software not just as a blog, but as the hub of a rich content management system (CMS), complete with static content and custom data types. Given that, it's no surprise that Webmasters and businesses around the world are increasingly basing entire sites around the platform. (And did we mention the "free" thing?)

While WordPress runs decently out of the box, site operators who employ a few tweaks and follow a few rules of thumb will achieve much better performance in the long run. In this article, we look at the best practices that will keep your WordPress site humming efficiently.
 

Limit the Number of Plugins

WordPress plugins are great. With a few clicks, ordinary users can add complex functionality to WordPress that otherwise might have taken hundreds or thousands of hours of programming.

But plugins also present a performance danger. Each plugin in the WordPress plugins directory must be loaded every time a new request is made. Even if the plugin is disabled, it will still load. This performance "gotcha" particularly affects sites on shared virtual hosting systems (e.g., Dreamhost, HostGator). Performance degradation can be dramatic on shared hosts; in some situations, user requests may never finish completing.

The number of plugins that will cause a site to slow down will vary based on a variety of factors. The author has been told by representatives of HostGator that they encourage customers to limit the number of installed plugins on their virtual hosting service to seven. Webmasters should select the WordPress plugins they employ carefully, and use a load testing service to measure the performance impact of any new plugins that they add to their system.