Let's say it's a way of operating.
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2024 8:25 am
First of all, those who make the site should not install plugins randomly, I have often seen plugins and asked what they were for and those who had made the site told me that they did not know but the theme recommended it. In the same way, when you create a professional website, you have to evaluate whether that plugin is really useful. Does it make sense to use a plugin that can potentially slow down your site to use only one of the functions it offers, and that perhaps you could have done with 100 lines of PHP using a "site specific plugin"?
So if we have to ask ourselves some questions when we are creating the site, we have to ask ourselves the same questions when we go to optimize it.
The first step in an optimization is elimination.
What plugins am I not using or could I do without without Romania Phone Numbers noticing any differences on my site?
What plugins am I using but only use part of their functions? Can I do without these functions? Or can I delete the plugin and write something lightweight to create the same functionality on the site?
Any optimization should start with this kind of work, not by installing a caching plugin and crossing your fingers that it improves on PageSpeed Insight or GTmetrix.
For more details you can read my in-depth article on plugins that slow down WordPress .
Are Caching Plugins Really Important?
Yes and no. We do not use a caching plugin on our SupportHost site and we do not use a server side cache. Yet tests on GTmetrix from London show loading times of less than 2 seconds.
How to understand when to use the cache?
First we need to understand what the cache does, and what the server does.
When you visit a web page you send the request to the server. It runs a series of PHP files until it generates the HTML code of the page to send it to the browser. These calculations take time, on the order of milliseconds, or in extreme cases seconds.
wordpress cache plugin loading times
On GTmetrix we see this as the first site loading time.
As you can see, the first request marked with a left slash (/) takes 171 milliseconds.
Using a cache plugin, HTML pages are created and saved in a folder. If available, the plugin sends the HTML page directly, saving all the calculations on the server, thus improving this time.
If the page is not cached, the server does its normal calculations and stores the HTML file in the cache folder. This takes longer because in addition to the normal calculations, it also has to add the file to that folder.
It follows that if the loading time I showed above is low (say under 3-500ms) there is no point in using a caching plugin, because it is already fast.
In any case, before installing a cache plugin without thinking we need to understand if we need it.
For example, on the old SupportHost site we were using a Themeforest theme and needed WP Super Cache. When we redesigned the site using Oxygen Builder, the story changed, basically the theme (with all the plugins it needed) was the one causing the slowdown (in our specific case there was also WPML creating an infinite number of queries).
Howant to tur
So if we have to ask ourselves some questions when we are creating the site, we have to ask ourselves the same questions when we go to optimize it.
The first step in an optimization is elimination.
What plugins am I not using or could I do without without Romania Phone Numbers noticing any differences on my site?
What plugins am I using but only use part of their functions? Can I do without these functions? Or can I delete the plugin and write something lightweight to create the same functionality on the site?
Any optimization should start with this kind of work, not by installing a caching plugin and crossing your fingers that it improves on PageSpeed Insight or GTmetrix.
For more details you can read my in-depth article on plugins that slow down WordPress .
Are Caching Plugins Really Important?
Yes and no. We do not use a caching plugin on our SupportHost site and we do not use a server side cache. Yet tests on GTmetrix from London show loading times of less than 2 seconds.
How to understand when to use the cache?
First we need to understand what the cache does, and what the server does.
When you visit a web page you send the request to the server. It runs a series of PHP files until it generates the HTML code of the page to send it to the browser. These calculations take time, on the order of milliseconds, or in extreme cases seconds.
wordpress cache plugin loading times
On GTmetrix we see this as the first site loading time.
As you can see, the first request marked with a left slash (/) takes 171 milliseconds.
Using a cache plugin, HTML pages are created and saved in a folder. If available, the plugin sends the HTML page directly, saving all the calculations on the server, thus improving this time.
If the page is not cached, the server does its normal calculations and stores the HTML file in the cache folder. This takes longer because in addition to the normal calculations, it also has to add the file to that folder.
It follows that if the loading time I showed above is low (say under 3-500ms) there is no point in using a caching plugin, because it is already fast.
In any case, before installing a cache plugin without thinking we need to understand if we need it.
For example, on the old SupportHost site we were using a Themeforest theme and needed WP Super Cache. When we redesigned the site using Oxygen Builder, the story changed, basically the theme (with all the plugins it needed) was the one causing the slowdown (in our specific case there was also WPML creating an infinite number of queries).
Howant to tur