GIEOM's WordPress site, which I developed in Elementor, started breaking: layouts collapsing, 502 errors and failed database writes. The cause was in the database, not the front end. A careful SQL clean-up took it from 1.2 GB to about 300 MB, and the errors stopped.

The Client GIEOM makes AI-powered software for governance, risk, compliance and operational resilience, built for banks, financial institutions and other regulated organisations.

The Problem The database had grown past the 1 GB limit of the SiteGround hosting plan. The postmeta table alone was about 957 MB, and over 800 MB of it was unused, orphaned data.

What I Did • Analysed the database with SQL first: no blind clean-up • Found about 94,000 orphaned metadata entries • Removed the unused postmeta records safely • Rebuilt the table to remove fragmentation • Optimised the database structure

The Result • Database: 1,239 MB → about 300 MB • postmeta: 957 MB → 20 MB • No more 502 errors • Elementor saves work again

Key Takeaway Many WordPress speed and stability problems start in the database, not the front end.

Tools & Platform WordPress · Elementor · MySQL · SiteGround

Live Site gieom.com