Seven Common WordPress Hosting Issues and Ways to Solve Them

WordPress is fairly easy to use, which is why it is one of the most popular and widely-used CMS globally. However, just like any other CMS, WordPress is not completely error-free. The good thing though is that WordPress has an amazing customer service that is always willing to help solve these common hosting issues.

In today’s article, we will discuss the most common WordPress hosting issues and ways that you can solve them.

Slow Loading Time

One of the most frustrating things when navigating a website is experiencing slow speed or loading time. Customers and website visitors often abandon slow-loading websites, leading to loss of revenue.

WordPress websites can sometimes experience lagging and slow loading time. The most common reasons for this are because of slow servers, slow-loading external scripts, and poorly-optimized websites. Some of these might occur one at a time while sometimes, it can occur all at once.

If you want to be able to increase the site speed, you need to track the problem first. You have to identify what’s slowing it down to know how to work on the problem.

First, take an inventory of your website’s assets and all of the plugins. Once you have listed everything down, try to look at it one by one so you would know which ones are causing the hosting problems. Take a look at which ones your website can live without and eliminate those to speed your site up.

If you can’t completely eliminate the plugins and assets that are slowing your website down, then try loading them last so the rest of your website will still load faster than before.

Increasing Costs

You might wonder why your costs are going up even if you are not purchasing any add-ons. Hosting packages can sometimes have hidden charges and fees that can make your costs go higher. This is the reason why it’s always important to take a closer look at your hosting packages and see what exactly you are paying for.

To avoid increasing hosting costs, make sure to communicate with your hosting provider, and ask for a breakdown of everything. See to it that they are transparent when it comes to costs and that their pricing is easy to understand.

Most hosting providers will charge you monthly or annually. However, usage-based pricing can sometimes charge you by the hour, especially when the traffic surges. Most hosting companies have customized hosting plans that will give you exactly what you need when it comes to WordPress hosting. This will eliminate hidden charges and extra fees so you would not have to pay for what you normally would not use.

Scheduled Maintenance Error

WordPress regularly updates its system and sometimes, it can be interrupted. Because of this, you might see error messages or pop-ups such as “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance”.

WordPress automatically puts your site into maintenance mode during this update but when it gets interrupted, then the hosting provider might not be able to put your site back up again. This will prevent both the admins and the visitors to access the site, which can be problematic.

To fix this, you would have to get your site out of maintenance mode. To manually do it by yourself, try deleting the .maintenance file from your website’s root folder. If you cannot access the .maintenance file in the root directory, then take a look at your FTP client to see all the hidden files. Once this is done, then your site should go back to normal and out of maintenance mode.

Breaches and Hacks

Even the biggest and most secure sites can sometimes get hacked, which makes this one of the biggest problems when it comes to website hosting. Having your WordPress website prone to hacks and breaches will not only put your own company’s security and information at risk but also your customers’ as well.

If your website and hosting provider does not have enough security measures in place, then incidents such as the following can happen:

• Fake admin accounts can be created by hackers
• Cyber attackers might log into your WordPress backend to add dangerous malware to your website
• Your site traffic could be hijacked and redirected to malicious spam websites
• Your website can be blacklisted
• Your customers’ data can be put on the line, and a lot more

To avoid this, you should ask your hosting provider to do the following security measures:

1. Give you the option to disable the WordPress admin login page
2. Have automated backups
3. Advanced site restoration options as well as cloning
4. Ask for multiple verifications before logging in
5. Scan the website regularly for malware and viruses
6. Deal with any malicious content or discrepancies immediately
7. Use a 2-way firewall
8. Update your operating system on a regular basis
9. Use antivirus and antispyware software for added protection

Additionally, your hosting provider should have basic security measures in place such as SSL certificates, firewalls, and SFTP to avoid breaches and hacks in the future.

The “Harmful Site” Error

Google automatically shows this pop-up message if they find a website that has suspicious coding that could be linked to trojan or malware.

If you see this pop-up when visiting your website, then it might be a sign that your site has been compromised and is now being hacked to distribute malicious coding. Additionally, your website might be showing ads that are coming from websites with malicious codes.

To fix this, you have to do the following:

1. Make a thorough backup of your whole WordPress site.
2. Check your website for any malicious code.
3. Install Sucuri to your WordPress site to avoid getting any suspicious activity. It helps block hacking attempts to your website and cleans all of the malware automatically.
4. Sucuri will help you remove all of the malicious codes and malware from your site. Once you are sure that your website has been thoroughly scanned and cleaned, you can then ask Google to remove the “Harmful website” error from the search results.
5. To do this, you’d have to use Google’s Webmaster tools. Start by clicking on the “security issues” section. It will then proceed to list all of the security issues that Google might find on your website.
6. Once you are sure that you have resolved the issues, then it’s time to click on the checkbox and ask Google for a review.

Instability With Servers

Unstable servers can often be the cause of your website’s downtime. This automatically makes your website unavailable to your website visitors and customers, which can greatly affect your sales and ROI.

Your website and servers can sometimes become unstable due to heavy traffic. If your hosting is not reliable enough, then it can crash and affect your website’s loading time.

To fix this issue, you’d want to consider doing the following:

• Try using multi-container servers. This helps your website deploy new containers when it gets a huge traffic surge, which means that your WordPress site will always be available because it’s automatically duplicated and can handle several visitors at a time.
• Updating your current hosting plan if you’ve reached the limit
• Or changing your hosting provider to a better one

502 Bad Gateway

This is one of the most common errors that both you and your website visitors can experience on WordPress. This usually pops up when the server is taking too long to process the request without giving other types of errors.

There are different possible causes as to why this error message pops up: a temporary error caused by extremely high traffic, a poorly coded WP theme or plugin, or even a server misconfiguration.

To work your way around it, try the following:

1. Reload your website to see if it pops up again. Sometimes, the server is just taking too long to respond because of the high traffic.
2. If that did not work, then try clearing your browser’s cache. Go to your web browser’s settings and click on “clear cache”. Try reloading your website again.
3. If the error still persists, then try disabling the CDN or firewall on your site. Try contacting your CDN provider and ask if they can disable and enable the CDN to try resolving the issue.
4. You can also update your WordPress plugins and themes to make sure that this is not what’s causing the problem. Deactivate your plugins via an FTP and see if your website loads properly. If it does, then this means that one of your plugins is causing the issue. Try activating it one by one to see which one of your plugins is causing the error.
5. If none of these tips above has worked, then try checking the hosting server. Try reaching out to your hosting provider and let them know about what’s going on with your website.

Conclusion

Trying to work around WordPress hosting issues can be a little technical, but with proper help and guidance, you can surely resolve it. Make sure to choose the right hosting provider so you won’t have to deal with these issues all the time.