Quick update on what we’re doing/have done to improve blog page-loading times:

 Bakomatic, our home-grown platform that powers our blogs, Inside Guide, classifieds and a few other things, is pretty complex. It not only powers about half of Bakersfield.com but also most of our other local sites (including Bakotopia, Tehachapi News, Raising Bakersfield, etc.). So there’s a lot of pushing and pulling going on 24-7.

 We made several changes last week to ease the pounding on our database. Load times have improved dramatically, but there have been some downsides to those changes. For example, we turned off our Bakomatic metrics tools, which means all new blogs read “0" views or comments even though they are getting traffic (we know this because we use two other independent tracking services – plus there are comments on some of the posts; duh!). We’re planning to implement another change on Monday that will allow us to restore those page counts without degrading performance.

 A second downside is that while your posts or comments should be published online, the headline of your post or comment might take a few minutes to surface in separate feeds (for example on our homepage or on the Recent Blogs page). That’s another thing we’re working to fine-tune without degrading performance.

Anyway, thanks again for your patience, your ideas and your support. 

--Logan Molen