OPTIMIZE US!

I could use some help…for years, Soul Sides has been hosted through a shared server on Dreamhost and everything has been lovely…until about 6 weeks ago when their server went haywire, thus creating all kinds of problems that pains me to even recall.

Coming out of that dark period, the site was still experiencing problems and DH decided to “upgrade” me to a virtual private server (VPS). Things have run much smoother (good) but a VPS is substantially more expensive (bad). Either way, DH has never been able to explain to me what exactly was creating the heavier server loads that necessitated the upgrade to a VPS.

At this point, I’m way outside of my technical wheelhouse and I could use some help in figuring out 1) what the hell is happening to generate high server load and 2) what I can do to lower it and thus, get me back to a shared server again.

I’m absolutely down to barter/trade/pay for someone’s time and knowhow. Holler at me.