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Speed Up Your Site Within The ACP

Ozzy47

Administrator
There is some things you can do from within the ACP, to help speed up your site somewhat, Ill go through them one at a time.

1) Disable Forum Jump/Quick Navigation:
vBulletin Options --> General Settings --> Use Forum Jump Menu: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> General Settings --> Use Quick Navigation Menu: (vB4)
Try turning this setting turned off. If you have a large amount of forums this will cause the server to work harder as it has to create the Forum Jump/Quick Navigation and then display it on the page. The Forum Forum Jump/Quick Navigation consists of quite a bit of HTML which makes the page larger which increases bandwidth usage. The majority of your members will not even realize it is gone.


2) Enable AJAX Features:
vBulletin Options --> General Settings --> Disable AJAX Features: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> General Settings --> Disable AJAX Features: (vB4)
Make sure that this is set to Enable All AJAX Features. Ajax helps reduce server load by not reloading a page where AJAX is used(Quick Reply for instance) . AJAX is used by the very useful WYSIWYG editor, so you should never disable it.

3) GZIP HTML Output:
vBulletin Options --> Cookies and HTTP Header Options --> GZIP HTML Output: (vB3)[/B]
Settings --> Options --> Cookies and HTTP Header Options --> GZIP HTML Output: (vB4)
If you are not sure whether or not you have this enabled on your server you may test it using this website: Check GZIP compression. It will tell you if you have it enabled or not and if you do it will show you how much the page was compressed. My forum home page uncompressed is 105,612 bytes and compressed 16,410 bytes for a total reduction of 84.5%. Make sure the Compression Level is never set higher than 1.

4) Redirection Message Pages:
vBulletin Options --> Cookies and HTTP Header Options --> Remove Redirection Message Pages: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Cookies and HTTP Header Options --> Remove Redirection Message Pages: (vB4)
Enabling this option will remove the update pages that are displayed after a user makes a post, starts a search, etc. Disabling these pages will save you bandwidth and may lessen the load of the forum on your server. Note: Some pages will still use the redirection page when cookies are involved to prevent some potential problems.

5) No-Cache HTTP Headers:
vBulletin Options --> Cookies and HTTP Header Options --> Add No-Cache HTTP Headers: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Cookies and HTTP Header Options --> Add No-Cache HTTP Headers: (vB4)
Make sure this is set to No. Never No-Cache a browser. It forces the person to reload the whole page, even if elements haven't changed. It takes bandwidth, and makes the page slower.

6) No-Cache HTTP Headers:
vBulletin Options --> Server Settings and Optimization Options --> Cached Posts Lifespan: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Server Settings and Optimization Options --> Cached Posts Lifespan: (vB4)
This option determines how long posts are stored. While a post is cached, it will take approximately twice as much storage space since it is essentially being stored twice.
If you have a busy site, and threads typically don't last very long, you can probably set this to a lower value such as 10 days. If you have the disc space, you can set this to a higher value for better performance.
If you have a slower site, and threads typically last longer, 20 to 30 days might be a better choice. If you have the disc space, you can set this to a higher value for better performance.

7) Update Thread Views Immediately:
vBulletin Options --> Server Settings and Optimization Options --> Update Thread Views Immediately: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Server Settings and Optimization Options --> Update Thread Views Immediately: (vB4)
Set this to No. With this set at No the Thread Views will automatically update via Cron job once a hour by default. If you wish to change this you can do so by editing the Scheduled Task for Thread Views to a different time.

8) Update Attachment Views Immediately:
vBulletin Options --> Server Settings and Optimization Options --> Update Attachment Views Immediately: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Server Settings and Optimization Options --> Update Attachment Views Immediately: (vB4)
Set this to No. With this set at No the Attachment Views will automatically update via Cron job once a hour by default. If you wish to change this you can do so by editing the Scheduled Task for Attachment Views to a different time.

9) Store CSS Stylesheets as Files:
vBulletin Options --> Style & Language Settings --> Store CSS Stylesheets as Files: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Style & Language Settings --> Store CSS Stylesheets as Files: (vB4)
Set this to Yes. Make sure that you change the permission of the /clientscript/vbulletin_css/ folder to 777. This greatly reduces the page size and the code to content ration as well as not requiring the web server to spit out all that code on every page load.

10) Show Last Post on Profile Page:
vBulletin Options --> User Profile Options --> Show Last Post on Profile Page: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> User Profile Options --> Show Last Post on Profile Page: (vB4)
Set this to No. This is very server intensive.

11) Quick Reply:
vBulletin Options --> Message Posting and Editing Options --> Quick Reply: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Message Posting and Editing Options --> Quick Reply: (vB4)
This make posting faster which leads to more posts being made. Quick Reply uses AJAX which means you do not have to load another page to make a post nor does it reload the page after you make the post.

12) Quick Edit:
vBulletin Options --> Message Posting and Editing Options --> Quick Edit: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Message Posting and Editing Options --> Quick Edit: (vB4)
Turn this on to reduce the need for a new page reload when someone simply wants to edit a post. By enabling Quick Edit, a click on the Edit button in a post will open an editor within that post via AJAX if the visitor's browser is compatible.

13) Minimum Time Between Searches:
vBulletin Options --> Message Searching Options --> Minimum Time Between Searches: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Message Searching Options --> Minimum Time Between Searches: (vB4)
The minimum time (in seconds) that must expire before the user can perform a new search. I see no load difference one way or another, so why annoy users trying to search the forum? You want them to find and visit pages on your site! I have mine set to 0.

14) Display Logged in Users:
vBulletin Options --> Forums Home Page Options --> Display Logged in Users: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Forum Home: Options --> Display Logged in Users: (vB4)
I would set this to Yes, Alphabetical listing to members only. What this does is show your members Alphabetically if you are logged in but if you are a guest the Currently Active Users does not show at all. This helps reduce server load by limiting the amount of people that see the Currently Active Users stats.

15)Users Browsing Forums:
vBulletin Options --> Forum Display Options (forumdisplay) --> Show Users Browsing Forums: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Forum Display Options (forumdisplay) --> Show Users Browsing Forums: (vB4)
I recommend setting this option set to No. If your members ask for it then enable it only for members. Guests really don't need to see who is viewing a particular forum.

16) Maximum Displayed Threads:
vBulletin Options --> Forum Display Options (forumdisplay) --> Maximum Displayed Threads Before Page Split: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Forum Display Options (forumdisplay) --> Maximum Displayed Threads Before Page Split: (vB4)
I recommend setting this to 20. I would not go much higher than this. The higher you go the more resources it takes to generate those extra threads to show and the bigger your page gets. Note: Changing this will change the amount of Forum Display pages that are generate overall which will result in a re-index by search engines.
This has a very big impact on server/site performance, and will make a vBulletin site crawl. If a person wants to see more, they can click pages to keep reading. Remember: It gets page views up, so it's not all bad!

17) Users Browsing Threads:
vBulletin Options --> Thread Display Options (showthread) --> Show Users Browsing Threads: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Thread Display Options (showthread) --> Show Users Browsing Threads: (vB4)
I recommend setting this option set to No. If your members ask for it then enable it only for members. Guests really don't need to see who is viewing a particular thread.

18) Check Thread Rating:
vBulletin Options --> Thread Display Options (showthread) --> Check Thread Rating: (vB3)
Settings --> Options --> Thread Display Options (showthread) --> Check Thread Rating: (vB4)
I recommend setting this to no. Thread Ratings are rarely used from what I have seen so you don't need it to tell the user whether or not they have rated the thread and what their rating was. IMO the whole idea of "thread ratings" is somewhat silly. This isn't high school; I don't care about popularity contests. If somebody finds something useful, awesome. If not, they can search again. In fact, if they're going to be negative and give low ratings (rather than post and help), I just assume they leave. Disable it.
 
My changes were:

1) Disable Forum Jump/Quick Navigation:
16) Maximum Displayed Threads: Changed from 40 to 20
17) Users Browsing Threads: I set to no

I went through all the options and I had them all set to what you recommended.

Thanks for the guide it was a very useful read and it explained a lot.
 
Settings --> Options --> Cookies and HTTP Header Options --> GZIP HTML Output: (vB4)
If you are not sure whether or not you have this enabled on your server you may test it using this website: Check GZIP compression. It will tell you if you have it enabled or not and if you do it will show you how much the page was compressed. My forum home page uncompressed is 105,612 bytes and compressed 16,410 bytes for a total reduction of 84.5%. Make sure the Compression Level is never set higher than 1.
I have this setting correct in ACP but still no joy on the test. What's going on?
 
9) Store CSS Stylesheets as Files:

Settings --> Options --> Style & Language Settings --> Store CSS Stylesheets as Files: (vB4)
Set this to Yes. Make sure that you change the permission of the /clientscript/vbulletin_css/ folder to 777. This greatly reduces the page size and the code to content ration as well as not requiring the web server to spit out all that code on every page load.
And, all this does is break my CSS. Folder permissions are correct.
 
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