{"id":2509,"date":"2026-10-20T08:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/article\/speed-up-slow-geodirectory-site\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T08:39:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:39:57","slug":"speed-up-slow-geodirectory-site","status":"publish","type":"gd_place","link":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/article\/troubleshooting\/speed-up-slow-geodirectory-site\/","title":{"rendered":"How to speed up a slow GeoDirectory site"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A GeoDirectory page runs live database queries for listings, maps, filters and distances, so it needs more from the server than a plain blog page. When a directory is slow, the cause is nearly always the hosting, missing caching, or heavy pages. Work through the checks below and measure after each change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Check the server<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shared hosting is often the limit, and it shows more as the number of listings grows. A VPS or managed host with enough RAM makes the biggest difference. See our <a href=\"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/article\/installation\/server-requirements\/\">server requirements<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Look at time to first byte (TTFB). If a page with almost no images still takes a second or more before anything arrives, the server or database is the bottleneck.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Run a current, supported PHP version.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ask your host to turn on Gzip or Brotli compression.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you see timeouts, ask your host to raise <code>memory_limit<\/code> and <code>max_execution_time<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Use page caching<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GeoDirectory works with the common caching plugins. Our <a href=\"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/article\/caching\/geodirectory-and-caching-compatibility\/\">caching compatibility guide<\/a> lists what to set and which pages to leave out. GD Booster was built for GeoDirectory v1, so remove it if it is still installed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Make pages lighter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Compress images. Photos straight from a phone can be several megabytes. WordPress creates smaller sizes on upload and GeoDirectory displays those; see <a href=\"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/article\/how-tos\/how-to-resize-gd-post-images\/\">how to resize GD post images<\/a>. An image optimisation plugin can shrink the uploads too.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lazy load maps. In GeoDirectory &gt; Settings &gt; General, click Show Advanced and set Lazy Load Maps to Auto or Click to Load. More in <a href=\"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/article\/how-tos\/how-to-lazy-load-maps-in-geodirectory\/\">how to lazy load maps<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Avoid the Random sort option on large directories. It is slow on big tables.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Show a sensible number of listings per page. See <a href=\"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/article\/builders\/changing-the-number-of-listings-shown-on-archive-and-search-pages\/\">changing the number of listings shown<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Settings for large directories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GeoDirectory &gt; Settings &gt; General &gt; Developer has two performance options. Enable Fast AJAX speeds up GeoDirectory AJAX requests by running them through a must-use plugin. Enable BIG Data Optimizations is for directories with more than 50,000 listings; leave it off on smaller sites, where it can slow things down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Measure load time as well as scores<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">PageSpeed scores are a guide. Load time and TTFB measured from a few locations near your visitors show how long people wait. A page on a fast server can load quickly with a modest score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A GeoDirectory page runs live database queries for listings, maps, filters and distances, so it needs more from the server than a plain blog page. When a directory is slow, the cause is nearly always the hosting, missing caching, or heavy pages. Work through the checks below and measure after each change. Check the server [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"article\/tags":[],"article\/categories":[211,437],"class_list":["post-2509","gd_place","type-gd_place","status-publish","hentry","gd_placecategory-tips-tricks-more","gd_placecategory-troubleshooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/gd_place"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2617,"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2509\/revisions\/2617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"gd_place_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/tags?post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"gd_placecategory","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpgeodirectory.com\/documentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/categories?post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}