Virtual Private Server advice - MySQL Query Cache? Keep Alives?

We've transferred our website from shared hosting to a VPS and, to our surprise, the website doesn't load anywhere near as fast on the VPS! :(
http://212.48.71.232/website/indexHOME.php

We are totally new to virtual/dedicated servers and server management and, were it not for the fact that we need an SSL certificate on the domain, we wouldn't have bothered!

Thing is, this is a straightforward PHP/MySQL website and is, and will always be, the only website on the VPS so it's not like it's competing with other sites on the server for resources. Here is the server spec:

CPU Cores
1 core

RAM (Memory)
1GB

HDD (Disk Space)
50GB

We were directed to the following page for tweaks that we can do on the server:
http://bobcares.com/blog/how-to-increase-your-server-speed/

...but this requires "Shell Access", which we have no idea about.

Can I ask for your advice in terms of how we can improve things? We have cPanel and WHM access to the server, but a lot of the options are just completely alien to me and I don't want to start tinkering. We were told about a couple of things though, that sounded relevant...

1) MySQL Query Cache - is this something that's written in to the SELECT statements?

2) Keep Alives - no idea, but we were informed by the VPS provider that these were "simple" (they can help no further than that though as it is a unmanaged server)

Another option is, of course, spending more money on the hardware but would that make a significant difference or is the issue more related to web page / database / browser functionality?

I'd appreciate any advice you could offer.
Thank you.
NJ

Query Cache and keep alive are settings that you make on the server.

a google search for:
query cache

found this link:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/query-cache.html

I'm sure you can find other resources for info on the keep alive directive.

We don't offer support for server settings.


at the end of the day, these are tweaks that should be used if you site is not responding as quickly as you would like.


you say:
"We are totally new to virtual/dedicated servers and server management and, were it not for the fact that we need an SSL certificate on the domain, we wouldn't have bothered"

you don't need to have dedicated hosting for an SSL certificate. There are many sites that use shared hosting and SSL.

We spotted that if you access our site under http:// it doesn't perform at all well, however if you access it under https:// it's absolutely great!

http://www.ledwarehouseuk.com/indexHOME.php
https://www.ledwarehouseuk.com/indexHOME.php

Perhaps this might help our server support people pin-point the issue. It doesn't, on the above evidence, strike me that this could be anything to do with needing to make server tweaks. We'd like it to perform like it does under https:// though but that isn't really practical, is it?

Regarding the SSL, we tried a few hosts but on their shared hosting they simply don't offer an SSL at the same domain as the site, rather you have to jump out to their shared SSL space at some awful URL such as https://secure.vaults1.com which I don't, particularly, like but maybe I'm being picky. I think it looks better if you've got the SSL certificate on the same domain as the site though.

Oh, I did try 1and1 Internet and, after two phone calls on hold for over 45 minutes, being incorrectly invoiced and then double billed by their accounts team, we decided to cut our losses! It really was a bad experience and I honestly couldn't recommend them to anyone.

i dont see any difference in the site performance between http versus https.

regardless, if you are seeing a difference, that would be on the server side, and not on the code side, the code wont act any slower or faster when access via http versus https.

We cant help with server setup, you will need to work with the host for server set up issues.


regarding you comments about SSL, yes, with shared hosting it will use a subdomain URL for the secure site. If you are picky about that, then yes you need dedicated hosting, that is the way it works.

sorry to hear about your troubles with 1 and 1, you are the first person I have heard from that has had a bad experience.