Client Industry: Local News / Digital Publishing
Platform: WordPress (High-Traffic News Format)
Cloud Stack: Microsoft Azure
Team Lead: Adam Leveille, President – ALCO USA Inc.
Scope: Hosting Architecture Redesign, WordPress Migration, Performance Optimization, Ad Platform Troubleshooting
Project Date: March 2025
Background
The client is a well-established local news publisher with over 30 years of presence in the South Bay, California region. Known for its consistent coverage of civic events, surf culture, and community issues, the publication has built a loyal reader base and substantial online traffic. In recent years, its digital footprint has grown significantly — and so have the demands on its website infrastructure.
Prior to our engagement, the site was hosted using a legacy VPS solution through a mainstream hosting provider. While this setup worked during the early stages of their digital transformation, it began to show serious limitations:
– Slow page loads during traffic spikes
– Poor mobile optimization
– Frequent ad script failures
– Costs exceeding $750/month for a server running at ~30% efficiency
– No visibility into real resource consumption or optimization paths
The editorial team needed a smarter, leaner, and more transparent setup — one that could support a large content archive, frequent publishing, banner advertising, and modern web standards.
Project Goals
Our objective was to rebuild the infrastructure from the ground up, using Azure to reduce costs and improve flexibility — without sacrificing performance or reliability. Specific goals included:
– Deploy a fully managed, scalable Azure environment tailored for WordPress
– Preserve uptime and SEO integrity during DNS and server transitions
– Improve backend and frontend speed across desktop and mobile
– Resolve legacy plugin issues and database bloat
– Fully integrate Google AdSense and Google Ad Manager across multiple dynamic ad placements
– Lay the groundwork for future enhancements (e.g., email delivery, analytics dashboards, CDN offloading)
Infrastructure Deployment Details
The new environment was built on Microsoft Azure using modular, scalable components to keep costs efficient and architecture flexible.
Core Azure Resources
– Azure Virtual Machine (B2ms): NGINX + PHP + Redis stack for WordPress hosting
– Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server: Managed SQL backend with auto-failover & daily backups
– Azure Blob Storage: Offloaded media (images, videos) with scalable delivery
– Azure DNS & IP Management: Low-latency DNS routing and dedicated static IP
– Azure Backup Vault + Recovery Services: Daily VM-level snapshots, 30-day retention
– Uptime & Resource Monitoring: Azure Monitor with custom dashboards + UptimeRobot alerts
WordPress Application Layer
The WordPress environment received a full audit and tuning across themes, plugins, and database. Key actions:
– Theme Cleanup: Removed legacy PHP logic, replaced outdated widget areas with native Gutenberg equivalents
– Plugin Audit: Replaced 6 heavy plugins with lightweight or custom alternatives
– Media Offload: Rewrote all attachment URLs to point to Azure Blob Storage
– Database Optimization: Pruned 100,000+ rows of orphaned metadata, optimized 15+ indexes
– Security Hardening: Configured UFW, disabled XML-RPC, enforced HTTPS headers via NGINX and plugin rules
– Email Offloading: Integrated with SendGrid API for all contact forms and transactional notifications
– Replaced default cron jobs with a server-level cron manager
Performance Benchmarks (Before vs. After)
Google Ads & Ad Manager Troubleshooting
We resolved several monetization issues post-migration, including broken ad rendering, lazy-load conflicts, and timing failures. Fixes included:
– Shortcode-based ad containers
– requestIdleCallback integration for script performance
– Ads.txt fixes and viewability improvements
– Enabled dynamic script refresh for sticky and sidebar zones
Monitoring, Analytics & Observability
– Azure Monitor + UptimeRobot (1-min interval checks)
– NGINX and PHP logs into Azure Log Analytics
– Slow query monitoring enabled in MySQL
– Google Analytics 4 + Tag Manager (server-side testing in progress)
Project Outcome & Value Delivered
This project helped the client cut hosting costs by over 50%, improve performance by over 2x, and restore their ad revenue with stable, optimized delivery. The Azure-first architecture ensures scalability and long-term maintainability.
What’s Next
We’re currently testing:
– Server-side GA4 event tracking
– Azure CDN integration for global content delivery
– Business dashboards for editorial and ad performance insights
Need Help With Your WordPress Infrastructure?
Whether you’re running a content site, digital storefront, or growing brand — we help businesses cut costs, speed up delivery, and take control of their hosting environment.
📩 Reach out to us at support@alcousa.org to learn more.