New to the community? Start here

[other] Slow Domain Process / Searching

Just in case y’all didn’t know… Searching for new domain names is excruciatingly slow on WPMU… This drives me to search for domains elsewhere, and then I end up buying elsewhere… 
Please try to speed it up here on WPMU as I would rather work with you guys, but if it’s slow, it’s a hard swallow!

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 16:52:13
More The Hub discussions
The Hub
  • dan
    • WPMU Loverboy

    Okay, this is where you may want to zoom out, and make some comparisons… I realize domains are a new frontier here at WPMU, so you may not actually want newcomers to get on board with registering quite yet (as if still in beta).
    What I’d like you to do is check out this video, showing the friction it takes to search for a domain on WPMU, signed in, versus signed out (GASP! I CANNOT), and a comparison with EPIK.COM.
    NOTE: I WANT WPMU TO BE THE BEST, this is why I do this:

    https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZwCLrVZbyRVRvozaL4oxCMNJ8sfxydjxihy

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hi dan

    Thanks for the video, I see what you mean!

    But before I address that, let me first respond to this:

    I realize domains are a new frontier here at WPMU, so you may not actually want newcomers to get on board with registering quite yet (as if still in beta).

    Yes, it’s a relatively new feature but we do NOT limit or “throttle” search in any way on purpose. We definitely do not want to prevent domain registration, on the contrary – we do want you/Members to register as many domains with us as you want/can and ultimately become your “one stop shop” for all things WordPress, including hosting and domain registrations. If there are some issues with domain registration, they are more of “childhood diseases” and not any attempts to prevent you from registering domain!

    Which is also why we a) definitely need and b) appreciate a lot all feedback on it that we receive.

    It helps us notice aspects and issues that we may either be not experiencing or just missing (or incorrectly consider not-so-much-important) and helps us make things better!

    —–

    Now back to the point:

    I just tested it myself and I’ve noticed two things that, I believe, may be important here:

    1. Going to “Domains” page in the Hub is nearly instant for me while it takes quite some time on your video.

    The difference I see is that on my main Hub account I currently have no domains registered at all while you have quite a few.

    I think this makes a difference and quite likely fetching a list of those registered domains may also trigger some additional processes (I’m not sure, maybe some additional checks) that take additional time.

    2. The results presentation

    That’s pretty much the same for me and when I compared it with epik.com and some other registrars, I noticed one significant difference:

    – apparently we return all results “at once” – result for the domain researched and for the “matching’ and “suggested” domains

    – while others present researched domain’s result right away and check/load results for other domains (“matching”, “suggested” etc) later on – checking and displaying them in background while the main result is already there.

    I think that may be what makes that difference as checking all those domains takes time. If you look closer at your own test at epik.com, you’ll notice that in total their “results loading” time is actually longer than ours but you don’t “feel” like that because you have result for main domain and the entire “layout” of the site displayed faster – and the other domains are just gradually added while the main one is already there. On our end, all is showing up at the same time but until then the loader image is displayed – which make it, indeed, appear to be slower.

    —–

    That’s my observation and I think it’s what causes such behavior and perception of speed but if it comes to technical reasons behind it, I’m not really able to tell much more as I don’t have insights into code powering it.

    I have passed this – both yours and mine – feedback to our Hub Team to review the issue and see if/what we could do about it to make it better. I’m sure they’ll be able to find some ways to improve that process over time.

    Thank you for your feedback again!

    Best regards,
    Adam

  • dan
    • WPMU Loverboy

    Perception is everything Adam :)

    Pass it on, and lets see where we land. Even the ‘feeling’ of fast, is actually fast. The whole ‘other domains’ thing is one of these features that is much less important, as we are always looking for specifics FIRST and FOREMOST. Epik does a great job of nailing it!!

    Keep up the good work, onward and upward!