October 23, 20188 yr I have been using website speed tester and it says I need to use webcaching. So I added WP Fast Cache plugin which has great reviews. However, when I enable it the website tester GTMetrix says website is even slower and the score for webcaching is even worse. Quite confused what's going on. How do I webcache using Wordpress?
October 24, 20188 yr Author Hi, I got the load speed down by more than 60% but now my website doesn't update in other browsers. This is ridiculous, why is so complex to make a website?
October 24, 20188 yr If you need caching you are doing something wrong. You have a slow site because of your theme, plugins, woocommerce, elementor and everything else you have added. If you want a fast site strip out everything you really don't need. You have a 1.9Mb homepage with 117 requests 43 of which are scripts. Building a website isn't complex if you plan it properly. The planning and preparation is often the longest part of the project (and most boring) but it's vital to get the result you want.
October 24, 20188 yr Author But I had this problem before I started using WP. I hand coded my first site. I added webcaching code and it stopped the site updating in other browsers. Once I switched on the webcaching plugin the speed increased by 60% but it wont update on other servers. I am talking to the owner of the plugin. How do you use webcaching. It's ridiculous. What if a florist wanted to make their own site. They have to look after all these details. Surely the host can make webcaching automatic.
October 24, 20188 yr 3 minutes ago, justlukeyou said: How do you use webcaching. It's ridiculous. What if a florist wanted to make their own site. They have to look after all these details. Surely the host can make webcaching automatic. It's because caching isn't "generic", different file types etc require assessing and depending on use will depend on caching rules. I'd get mighty annoyed if a host started auto caching stuff, like most things on the web it's a case-by-case basis. If a florist wanted to make their own website they can, just like us developers they would need to learn how to code and other aspects involved in making a site. What if I wanted to be a florist? Is there a "make me a florist with talent" plugin I could use? Don't ever forget these pre-fab site builders were coded at the core by some pretty talented people so you can simply "one click install".
October 24, 20188 yr Author Why does it not cache everything. There must be a simple solution to this.
October 24, 20188 yr 3 minutes ago, justlukeyou said: Why does it not cache everything. There must be a simple solution to this. I don't think you understand caching; Quote A web cache (or HTTP cache) is an information technology for the temporary storage (caching) of web documents, such as HTML pages and images, to reduce server lag. Source: Wikipedia So the cache is for making quick access to something, but the question is always "how long before the cache is considered stale". Now for search result page you generally don't want to cache, people running repeat searches don't want a cached version of /search.php. What about a font? If using a locally stored font the odds of the actual font file changing (not the same as css changing a font) is pretty slim; caching these fonts for a year would be favourable.
October 24, 20188 yr Author But why is none of the website updating on other browsers when I try webcaching. I have tried code and a plugin and the same thing happens. There must be a way to fix this.
October 24, 20188 yr Have a read of the code, what does the plugin code actually do? If you look at HTTP Cache Headers – A Complete Guide you'll be able to read the plugin and work out what's happening. By the sounds of things the server or browser are not requesting a newer version.
October 24, 20188 yr Author What about when I used the manual code. If both options are failing do I need to speak to my host. This is ridiculous
October 24, 20188 yr It's not ridiculous. You need to read up about how caching works, how browsers interpret the code and how your host delivers content. As I said, the problem is your site. You have thrown everything on the site without considering its impact on performance.
October 24, 20188 yr Author I have said a few times now. The caching did not work before I started using WP. So Wordpress is not the issue.
October 24, 20188 yr You can cache with htaccess, I hand code everything and it's my go-to, all my sites are quick no matter the tool used to test. With htaccess I "generally" run; AddType application/vnd.ms-fontobject .eot AddType font/ttf .ttf AddType font/otf .otf AddType font/x-woff .woff AddType image/svg+xml .svg # Deflate for speed AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf font/otf image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript # BEGIN EXPIRES <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 week" ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 week" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 week" ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 week" ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 week" ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 week" ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 week" ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 year" ExpiresByType font/ttf "access plus 1 year" ExpiresByType font/otf "access plus 1 year" ExpiresByType font/x-woff "access plus 1 year" ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 year" </IfModule>
October 24, 20188 yr Author Okay. If so I need to add this to my htaccess file? I tried code on my htaccess file when I handed coded my site but it was much smaller than this.
October 24, 20188 yr Normally you'll have at the start something like; Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / Options -Indexes RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.co\.uk [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] ErrorDocument 404 /404.php ... after that should be fine but I warn you I have no idea what WP does in the htaccess file.
October 24, 20188 yr 23 minutes ago, justlukeyou said: I have said a few times now. The caching did not work before I started using WP. So Wordpress is not the issue. Yes, but I also said if your site is properly constructed you shouldn't need caching. It can help but if you have a slow site all caching does is mask the underlying problems
October 24, 20188 yr 21 minutes ago, fisicx said: Yes, but I also said if your site is properly constructed you shouldn't need caching. It can help but if you have a slow site all caching does is mask the underlying problems Which brings us back to the caching on a case-by-case basis
October 24, 20188 yr Author 31 minutes ago, fisicx said: Yes, but I also said if your site is properly constructed you shouldn't need caching. It can help but if you have a slow site all caching does is mask the underlying problems The Google site seems to suggest that every site should using Caching. They just don't explain how to do it.
October 24, 20188 yr Author 9 minutes ago, BrowserBugs said: Which brings us back to the caching on a case-by-case basis I see. So how do I go about it with my site? I just don't understand how both options don't work.
October 24, 20188 yr 6 minutes ago, justlukeyou said: The Google site seems to suggest that every site should using Caching. They just don't explain how to do it. Google says a lot of things - and a lot of them just aren't practical. To fix the site you need to eliminate all the scripts, styles, images and other clutter you aren't using. You minimize and concatenate the rest. Then you can use your functions.php to remove all the detritus wordpress adds to your site. It's a slow process but the end result is a fast and efficient site. You should be able to get those 177 server calls down to around 30. Just doing that will cut your load speed by a large chunk.
October 24, 20188 yr Author 3 minutes ago, fisicx said: Google says a lot of things - and a lot of them just aren't practical. To fix the site you need to eliminate all the scripts, styles, images and other clutter you aren't using. You minimize and concatenate the rest. Then you can use your functions.php to remove all the detritus wordpress adds to your site. It's a slow process but the end result is a fast and efficient site. You should be able to get those 177 server calls down to around 30. Just doing that will cut your load speed by a large chunk. Okay but I have absolutely no experience in that and it sounds like a mountain to climb when I already have so much else to do. Why are there plugins that speed my site up by 60% but then stop updating when I visit the site.
October 24, 20188 yr Author What I'm confused about is that I see corporate websites with lots of images on and they large file image sizes but their sites are fast.
October 24, 20188 yr Author Hi, Is there a quick fix to this. I have sold ebooks in the past and I want to sell a new ebook with 10% from each sale going to a charity that uses drones to find homeless people. I really need to get this sorted.
October 25, 20188 yr 9 hours ago, justlukeyou said: What I'm confused about is that I see corporate websites with lots of images on and they large file image sizes but their sites are fast. Better hosting. You are on cheap shared hosting with one of the worst providers in the UK so it's never going to be quick. 7 hours ago, justlukeyou said: Hi, Is there a quick fix to this. I have sold ebooks in the past and I want to sell a new ebook with 10% from each sale going to a charity that uses drones to find homeless people. I really need to get this sorted. The fix is to remove all the plugins and page builders and make the site really simple. You don't need all those layout features. To sell the book all you need is a basic payment plugin like this one: https://wordpress.org/plugins/quick-paypal-payments/ The sort of site you want can be put together in a couple of hours. If it's a charity thing I can help you with this.
October 25, 20188 yr 11 hours ago, justlukeyou said: I see. So how do I go about it with my site? I just don't understand how both options don't work. The caching of assets like images / css / js will help. To test a file you can use a header check. An example, I tested your logo.png; HTTP/1.1 200 OK => Date => Thu, 25 Oct 2018 07:48:47 GMT Server => Apache Last-Modified => Sat, 20 Oct 2018 19:23:07 GMT ETag => "37046822-6d55-578adf31ed804" Accept-Ranges => bytes Content-Length => 27989 Connection => close Content-Type => image/png Set-Cookie => DYNSRV=lin226; path=/ No caching, so here is an example of a jpg from a site I work on which uses htaccess for caching images as I showed earlier; HTTP/1.1 200 OK => Date => Thu, 25 Oct 2018 07:50:08 GMT Server => Apache Last-Modified => Wed, 26 Sep 2018 11:27:47 GMT ETag => "bd1756d-e9e0-576c48307670d" Accept-Ranges => bytes Content-Length => 59872 Cache-Control => max-age=604800 Expires => Thu, 01 Nov 2018 07:50:08 GMT X-Clacks-Overhead => GNU Terry Pratchett Connection => close Content-Type => image/jpeg Set-Cookie => DYNSRV=lin-10-170-0-64; path=/ Note it has Cache-Control => max-age=604800 which is 7 days in seconds aka "access plus 1 week". This tells the browser that until the expiry of Thu, 01 Nov 2018 07:50:08 GMT this image is considered fresh so use the local cached version of the image. Now for the next 7 days that's 1 image they don't have to request again. Pages themselves on the other hand are treated differently, so for example your home page comes back as; HTTP/1.1 200 OK => Date => Thu, 25 Oct 2018 08:14:50 GMT Server => Apache X-UA-Compatible => IE=edge X-Pingback => https://www.mydronecareer.com/xmlrpc.php Link => ; rel="https://api.w.org/", ; rel=shortlink Connection => close Content-Type => text/html; charset=UTF-8 Set-Cookie => DYNSRV=lin-10-170-0-15; path=/ Nothing about cache control, this is why the pages don't update in some browsers, they are not informed to your cache preference so they will make their own mind up. With actual pages I generally go for no cache, this forum home page also follows this method. HTTP/1.1 200 OK => Date => Thu, 25 Oct 2018 08:17:02 GMT Server => Apache X-Powered-By => PHP/7.0.32 Expires => Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT Cache-Control => no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate Pragma => no-cache X-XSS-Protection => 0 X-IPS-Cached-Response => Thu, 25 Oct 2018 08:16:57 GMT Connection => close Set-Cookie => ips4_IPSSessionFront=9aj1dkcu74kim90fu2hof1c1c2; path=/; secure; HttpOnly Content-Length => 109430 Vary => Accept-Encoding Content-Type => text/html;charset=UTF-8 X-Backend-Server => standard_backend/web5.hosting.stackcp.net Note they have set the expiry to a previous date and set the cache control to not store or cache and the browser needs to re-validate each request. You can set these with php just before the start of the page; header("Expires: " . date("D, d M Y H:i:s", strtotime("-1 year")) . " GMT"); header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate"); Edited October 25, 20188 yr by BrowserBugs
October 25, 20188 yr 9 hours ago, justlukeyou said: Hi, Is there a quick fix to this. I have sold ebooks in the past and I want to sell a new ebook with 10% from each sale going to a charity that uses drones to find homeless people. I really need to get this sorted. As I see it your options are 1) continue to learn about caching yourself and find a way through the issues you're having or 2) find a hosting provider who will not just host your site, but provide proactive management for it too. There are plenty out there, but obviously you will pay more. As the other posters have said though, a clean/efficiently put together WP site with a host already running optimizations for hosting Wordpress, shouldn't need a caching plugin as well.
October 25, 20188 yr 1 hour ago, BrowserBugs said: Note it has Cache-Control => max-age=604800 which is 7 days in seconds aka "access plus 1 week". This tells the browser that until the expiry of Thu, 01 Nov 2018 07:50:08 GMT this image is considered fresh so use the local cached version of the image. Now for the next 7 days that's 1 image they don't have to request again. And this is where it all starts to fall over. You still need the initial page load to build the local cache which means the site isn't going to load any faster. And if your browser (like mine) it set to clear history when you close the browser then the local cache won't even exist. On a phone the cache is tiny so only really lasts for a few hours so again you will have to reload everything every time. It also relies on the repeat visits to the site. If they land and bounce off and not return then the caching becomes irrelevant.
October 25, 20188 yr 10 minutes ago, fisicx said: And this is where it all starts to fall over. You still need the initial page load to build the local cache which means the site isn't going to load any faster. And if your browser (like mine) it set to clear history when you close the browser then the local cache won't even exist. On a phone the cache is tiny so only really lasts for a few hours so again you will have to reload everything every time. It also relies on the repeat visits to the site. If they land and bounce off and not return then the caching becomes irrelevant. Yep, that's your browser and preference, you can even turn off any caching. Caching is good even for a single visit if you explore more than one page in a session. If you don't ever come back the speed and lack of repeat downloading in that single session is worth it IMO, especially if you run a plug in heavy WP site you still only swallow the excessive js files once per visit. Just like using JavaScript for lazy loading, only benefits the JS faithful and actually adds an extra request for those without. Without caching anything no one will benefit. Edited October 25, 20188 yr by BrowserBugs
October 25, 20188 yr Author 2 hours ago, fisicx said: Better hosting. You are on cheap shared hosting with one of the worst providers in the UK so it's never going to be quick. The fix is to remove all the plugins and page builders and make the site really simple. You don't need all those layout features. To sell the book all you need is a basic payment plugin like this one: https://wordpress.org/plugins/quick-paypal-payments/ The sort of site you want can be put together in a couple of hours. If it's a charity thing I can help you with this. Many thanks! What host would you recommend. How would you construct the sort of the site. With the Pagebuilder I just need the homepage to shrink down on mobile. If I have a template code I should be able to do it myself and get rid of Pagebuilder.
October 25, 20188 yr I've got my own server so I'm probably not the best person to ask about hosting but I point clients to https://www.hihosting.co.uk/ They seem to do a good job. Get the content on the homepage and I'll fix it for you. But it's not just the page builder, it's the theme and woocommerce slowing things down.
October 25, 20188 yr Author Okay great. I will design the final page. Should be able to do it tomorrow. Do you think the Twitter feed is a problem. I am using the standard Twitter feed. The thing I'm puzzles about is that the Wordpress plugins have great reviews. That's why I'm confused as to why they don't work.
October 25, 20188 yr 29 minutes ago, justlukeyou said: Okay great. I will design the final page. Should be able to do it tomorrow. Do you think the Twitter feed is a problem. I am using the standard Twitter feed. The thing I'm puzzles about is that the Wordpress plugins have great reviews. That's why I'm confused as to why they don't work. They do work, but most do server-side and not client-side caching. One will store data in a users browser, the other will fetch cached data off the server to avoid things like database queries. Some server side caching, for example, will take data out of an in-memory store, others will fetch a static HTML version of the page. Caching isn't a silver bullet, it needs to be understood to implemented properly.
October 25, 20188 yr Author 1 minute ago, Jack said: They do work, but most do server-side and not client-side caching. One will store data in a users browser, the other will fetch cached data off the server to avoid things like database queries. Some server side caching, for example, will take data out of an in-memory store, others will fetch a static HTML version of the page. Caching isn't a silver bullet, it needs to be understood to implemented properly. I contacted my host and they suggested I use a different plugin and that didn't work either. So are you suggesting I cant use any plugins?
October 25, 20188 yr I have never used any of them. Our host has their own server-side caching system that we use instead based on something called memcached. Quote I got the load speed down by more than 60% but now my website doesn't update in other browsers. That's exactly how it should work. When something changes, you need a way of invalidating the current cache on the server. It sounds like before you touch anything on the server, you need to improve the frontend performance of your site, then look at cache control headers, which are client-side not server-side. Focus on frontend and client-side performance before anything else.
October 25, 20188 yr 1 hour ago, justlukeyou said: Many thanks! What host would you recommend. How would you construct the sort of the site. With the Pagebuilder I just need the homepage to shrink down on mobile. If I have a template code I should be able to do it myself and get rid of Pagebuilder. There are a ton of good hosts around, for example at RackX we employ a number of server-side solutions to optimise performance as well as run everything in shared accounts from SSD. It makes a huge difference. Just take the time to do some research and be prepared to look beyond the typical “big” names Edited October 25, 20188 yr by Matt-RackX Remove link
October 25, 20188 yr 1 hour ago, justlukeyou said: The thing I'm puzzles about is that the Wordpress plugins have great reviews. That's why I'm confused as to why they don't work. The do work. They just don't work the way you want them to. In any case, most of the reviews were written by people who have no idea what they are doing. 40 minutes ago, justlukeyou said: I contacted my host and they suggested I use a different plugin and that didn't work either. So are you suggesting I cant use any plugins? Avoid plugins where possible. And avoid any theme that bolts on stuff you don't need. Caching is not the answer to your problem. The solution is to do what I suggested a while back and focus on the content. Get this sorted and then make it look pretty.
October 25, 20188 yr Author 7 hours ago, fisicx said: The do work. They just don't work the way you want them to. In any case, most of the reviews were written by people who have no idea what they are doing. Avoid plugins where possible. And avoid any theme that bolts on stuff you don't need. Caching is not the answer to your problem. The solution is to do what I suggested a while back and focus on the content. Get this sorted and then make it look pretty. Thanks, I do like the layout of my site. 10X better than it used to be. I want to get rid of the pagebuilder. Is there any template media kit I can use. If I had a template I could probably get it working and then get rid of the pagebuilder. Starting from scratch with a mediakit could take me 2 months but a template could take me a week.
October 26, 20188 yr Author I have been doing some more testing and I either need to get rid of the images which obviously I can't do or the pagebuilder but to do that I need to use mediakit which I haven't used before. The way I learn is by playing with templates. Is there such thing as a template media kit that I can practice with. I need to get this sorted.
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