Reduce database calls to improve website performance Updated on August 16, 2021 by InMotion Hosting Contributor 1 Minutes, 48 Seconds to Read If you use a database for your website, reducing the database calls your site makes can help speed things up. Storing data inside a database makes it easier to retrieve, and makes your website more flexible. This convenience can also sometimes cause your website to take up more server resources and cause your site to load slower. Use a cache to cut down on database calls Most websites these days run on a CMS or Content Management system. These all rely on a database back-end to store your website content, and you can speed them all up by implementing caching. If one visitor requests a page, your CMS will use a database call to pull in that info. You can cache this info to a file, so that the next visitor won’t have to wait for the server to ask the database for that same information again. We have guides covering some of the most common CMS applications out there: WordPress cache Joomla cache Drupal 7 cache Drupal 8 cache Prestashop 1.5 cache Prestashop 1.6 cache Limiting database calls without a CMS If you aren’t using a CMS with a cache plugin to automatically reduce database calls, you’ll need to do this manually. Depending on how you’ve coded the site this can differ a lot. When coding your site think about how frequently database information might change. If you had a page called specials.php that pulled in monthly specials from a database. That info might only change once a month if that. You could go ahead and update your database with the specials, then run your specials.php script once. After that just use (Ctrl-U) in your web-browser to view the HTML of that generated page. Copy all the HTML into a new file called specials.htm. Then just link from your website to that static HTML page instead of the database driven PHP one. Additional help for reducing database calls There is a lot of great content on the web for how you can reduce database calls. If the information above doesn’t help you out, please comment below and ask for help and we’d be glad to update this guide with more! Share this Article InMotion Hosting Contributor Content Writer InMotion Hosting contributors are highly knowledgeable individuals who create relevant content on new trends and troubleshooting techniques to help you achieve your online goals! More Articles by InMotion Hosting Related Articles How to Prevent Image Hotlinking with .htaccess Rules How to Edit a Website File on Your Server How to Import a Table Using phpMyAdmin Force HTTPS with the .htaccess File The Complete Guide to cPanel Backups Schedule Social Media Posts With Buffer How to Google Analytics to WordPress Without a Plugin How to Install Jekyll and Launch a New Site FTP Basics for Dedicated Servers What is your default PHP.ini file?
