Larger Sites

[mvlcek]

Yeah I knew it supported that I was just using it as the generalized small site figure. I was just curious if GS had any limits on the amount of pages it can handle

Basically the GS frontend should work even with 1000+ pages quite performant, as basically independent of the number of pages only one page XML is read and output. The only parts growing with the number of pages are:

• since GS 3.1 all fields of all pages (with the exception of the content field) are cached in one file, which is read for each request, EVEN IF IT IS NOT NEEDED. If you use custom fields with I18N custom fields or I18N special pages, they are cached in ANY CASE, even if they are content like fields (e.g. for 2-column layouts). Thus the cache file might get very large.
  
• if you use queries to search the cache, the time needed will be proportional to the number of pages (but probably neglectable to the time needed for reading), but displaying the excerpts, etc. of the found pages will only depend on the number to be displayed, not the total number of pages.
  
• if you use the I18N plugin, the plugin uses its own cache file for the navigation - with only the necessary fields - which was great for pre-3.1 and would still be great, if just the GS cache used lazy loading.
  
• if you use I18N search, the indexing time grows with the number of pages - but this is just for the first user searching. However, depending on your configuration, you might run out of time (maximum execution time of PHP) or memory.
  
• searching with I18N search is of course approximately proportional to the number of pages. You might want to switch off the AJAX features (like live search).
  

On the backend:

• the main problem is the display of all pages - it will take longer for more pages. And if you don't use the I18N plugin, you won't be able to find anything in the long list.
  
• when you update pages, cache files (like the GS cache, the I18N navigation cache, the I18N search index) might be recreated (if it is not done lazy on first use) - you might have to wait a long time after saving and there is the danger of too large a PHP execution time or memory.