Post by lizakhatun1122 on Oct 30, 2024 6:40:55 GMT
I think that nobody has any doubt that the Wordpress plugin W3 Total Cache is one of the most complete and advanced for good cache management of our blog, website or online store with Woocommerce, but what happens is that it is not a plugin for beginners and we get a little choked when we think about how to configure W3 Total Cache .
When I thought about inviting on page seo service Álvaro Fontela to make this magnificent tutorial, I asked him to cover the 3 types of configurations that I think users demand the most in this WordPress plugin, so that a clear distinction could be made between the use of W3 for Blogs or very basic web pages, online stores with Woocommerce and finally to explain the most advanced configurations of the plugin for much more demanding web projects.
Configure the W3 plugin for a blog or website in Wordpress.
Configure the W3 plugin for an online store with Woocommerce.
Advanced features to get the most out of cache management.
[clickToTweet tweet=”You no longer have an excuse for not configuring the cache correctly in
You may also like:
75 Steps to Create a Successful WordPress Blog – Guide for 2016
10 Basic WordPress SEO Tips to Get 2016 Off to a Good Start
The 25 Best WordPress Plugins You Shouldn't Miss
How to choose the best WordPress theme
What is caching in Wordpress
WordPress generates each web page dynamically, meaning it has to perform a series of actions to display a request made by the user.
The first thing the server does when it receives a request is to interpret the Wordpress PHP code, and then it queries the database to obtain the information to be displayed to the user. This content is returned to the user in HTML format.
Cache management tools allow you to avoid all these cumbersome steps by creating a view of the page you want to load.
Advantages of using caching
1.- Loading time, also known as pagespeed, is considerably improved.
2.- Server resource consumption is reduced.
3.- Different versions of content can be served depending on the type of user or origin of the visit.
4.- Improves user experience.
5.- It is a very important factor in web positioning.
Disadvantages of using cache
1.- We will take up more space in our hosting due to the cached files.
2.- When we make a change, users will not be able to see it until the cache is refreshed.
3.- Advanced knowledge is required to take full advantage of the cache.
advantages disadvantages cache
How to configure W3 Total Cache for a Blog or Website in Wordpress
General Settings
1.- We activate Page Cache .
page cache activation
In cache method if our server has another type of service available like memcached, we could use it.
2.- Do not activate Minify to avoid problems.
do not activate minify
W3's Minify is not the most recommended and it often causes problems with many themes. If we want to use this option, it is preferable to do so with a different plugin.
3.- We activate Database Cache and Object Cache.
database object cache
4.- Activate Browser Cache.
browser cache
Then we save it by clicking on the “Save all settings” button.
Page Cache
We activate:
Front page cache.
Cache Feeds.
Cache 404.
Don't cache pages for logged users.
Page Cache
We activate the Cache Preload option and change the time interval to 300 seconds, the number of pages to 20 and add the URL with our sitemap, which will be one or the other depending on the plugin you use to generate it.
cache preload
We leave the rest of the options in this section as they are, since they are well configured by default.
Database Cache
We have increased the lifetime of our cached items to 3550 seconds.
database cache
Object Cache
We have increased the lifetime of our cached items to 3550 seconds.
Browser Cache
We leave it as is, we don't need to adjust or modify anything.
Well, now you have your website or blog correctly configured with W3 Total Cache.
How to configure W3 Total Cache for an Online Store with Woocommerce
In this case we are going to see how to configure for an Online Store with Woocommerce, taking into account that there are several things that we have to modify in the W3 configuration to adapt it to the operation of an Online Store, since there are certain parts that should never be cached because they would prevent purchases, and would negatively impact the user experience.
Woocommerce is one of the plugins that consumes the most, due to the use of ajax but we must be careful with what we cache.
General Settings
We apply the same settings that we have seen previously for a normal Blog in Wordpress.
Page Cache
Add all the pages that Woocommerce creates by default in our Ecommerce to the list of URLs that will not be cached.
list of exceptions
Database Cache
Here we need to add an option to not cache W3's carts. To do this we need to add _wc_session_ to this list.
wc session
We do this because it is completely necessary for Woocommerce carts to work properly.
Well, now you have W3 configured to work well with Woocomerce, starting from an initial configuration that we have seen before for a Blog.
W3 Total Cache Advanced Settings
Here we will see some aspects of the advanced configuration of W3 Total Cache, we will go section by section, specifically these will be seen:
User Agents Group.
Referrer Groups.
CDN.
Extensions.
Install.
User Agents Groups
Basically, this section is used to create cache groups, that is, types of cache that will be served according to groups. For example, it would be useful to filter user agents on mobile devices that receive one type of cache, while user agents on a desktop device receive another type of cache. In other words, it is useful to show different content to some user agents and to others.
User Agents Groups
Referrer Groups
It is similar to the above and allows us to serve a different type of cache, that is, a different cache content to each group of referrals, that is, those people who come referred from a specific web page.
Referrer Groups
CDN
The CDN section is one of the most advanced in W3 and one of the most useful, giving us the option to choose from a large list of CDNs, and even to create our own CDN.
W3 is very flexible and allows us to decide which elements we add to the CDN and which ones we don't.
The CDN section is one of the most important and one that we should always keep in mind.
Extensions
W3 brings certain modules that we should know, such as:
Cloudflare. This allows us to integrate our website with Cloudflare. Its integration is not necessary.
Feedburner.
Genesis Framework. Adapts the functioning of W3 to Genesis themes.
Wordpress SEO by Yoast. What it does is add the sitemap to the page cache tab in a much easier way.
None of the extensions are essential to run W3, but in certain situations they can be quite helpful.
Monitoring
It is a service that allows us to integrate with New Relic, which allows us to observe the performance of the PHP response, and also allows us to have a vision from the developer's point of view.
Install
It is undoubtedly one of the most advanced sections of W3 and gives us information such as:
It tells us the privileges used by our Wordpress folders.
It tells us the information that .htacess files should have in general.
It allows us to install modules on our server.
Well, this is all the advanced configuration that W3 has.
We have reached the end of this W3 manual. I hope that it will be very useful for you to get the most out of this plugin, and above all, that it will guide you step by step on how to configure W3 Total Cache in just 5 minutes .
What Cache plugin do you use?
Do you have any questions about how to configure the cache in Wordpress?
If you liked the manual, you can share it with a friend.
When I thought about inviting on page seo service Álvaro Fontela to make this magnificent tutorial, I asked him to cover the 3 types of configurations that I think users demand the most in this WordPress plugin, so that a clear distinction could be made between the use of W3 for Blogs or very basic web pages, online stores with Woocommerce and finally to explain the most advanced configurations of the plugin for much more demanding web projects.
Configure the W3 plugin for a blog or website in Wordpress.
Configure the W3 plugin for an online store with Woocommerce.
Advanced features to get the most out of cache management.
[clickToTweet tweet=”You no longer have an excuse for not configuring the cache correctly in
You may also like:
75 Steps to Create a Successful WordPress Blog – Guide for 2016
10 Basic WordPress SEO Tips to Get 2016 Off to a Good Start
The 25 Best WordPress Plugins You Shouldn't Miss
How to choose the best WordPress theme
What is caching in Wordpress
WordPress generates each web page dynamically, meaning it has to perform a series of actions to display a request made by the user.
The first thing the server does when it receives a request is to interpret the Wordpress PHP code, and then it queries the database to obtain the information to be displayed to the user. This content is returned to the user in HTML format.
Cache management tools allow you to avoid all these cumbersome steps by creating a view of the page you want to load.
Advantages of using caching
1.- Loading time, also known as pagespeed, is considerably improved.
2.- Server resource consumption is reduced.
3.- Different versions of content can be served depending on the type of user or origin of the visit.
4.- Improves user experience.
5.- It is a very important factor in web positioning.
Disadvantages of using cache
1.- We will take up more space in our hosting due to the cached files.
2.- When we make a change, users will not be able to see it until the cache is refreshed.
3.- Advanced knowledge is required to take full advantage of the cache.
advantages disadvantages cache
How to configure W3 Total Cache for a Blog or Website in Wordpress
General Settings
1.- We activate Page Cache .
page cache activation
In cache method if our server has another type of service available like memcached, we could use it.
2.- Do not activate Minify to avoid problems.
do not activate minify
W3's Minify is not the most recommended and it often causes problems with many themes. If we want to use this option, it is preferable to do so with a different plugin.
3.- We activate Database Cache and Object Cache.
database object cache
4.- Activate Browser Cache.
browser cache
Then we save it by clicking on the “Save all settings” button.
Page Cache
We activate:
Front page cache.
Cache Feeds.
Cache 404.
Don't cache pages for logged users.
Page Cache
We activate the Cache Preload option and change the time interval to 300 seconds, the number of pages to 20 and add the URL with our sitemap, which will be one or the other depending on the plugin you use to generate it.
cache preload
We leave the rest of the options in this section as they are, since they are well configured by default.
Database Cache
We have increased the lifetime of our cached items to 3550 seconds.
database cache
Object Cache
We have increased the lifetime of our cached items to 3550 seconds.
Browser Cache
We leave it as is, we don't need to adjust or modify anything.
Well, now you have your website or blog correctly configured with W3 Total Cache.
How to configure W3 Total Cache for an Online Store with Woocommerce
In this case we are going to see how to configure for an Online Store with Woocommerce, taking into account that there are several things that we have to modify in the W3 configuration to adapt it to the operation of an Online Store, since there are certain parts that should never be cached because they would prevent purchases, and would negatively impact the user experience.
Woocommerce is one of the plugins that consumes the most, due to the use of ajax but we must be careful with what we cache.
General Settings
We apply the same settings that we have seen previously for a normal Blog in Wordpress.
Page Cache
Add all the pages that Woocommerce creates by default in our Ecommerce to the list of URLs that will not be cached.
list of exceptions
Database Cache
Here we need to add an option to not cache W3's carts. To do this we need to add _wc_session_ to this list.
wc session
We do this because it is completely necessary for Woocommerce carts to work properly.
Well, now you have W3 configured to work well with Woocomerce, starting from an initial configuration that we have seen before for a Blog.
W3 Total Cache Advanced Settings
Here we will see some aspects of the advanced configuration of W3 Total Cache, we will go section by section, specifically these will be seen:
User Agents Group.
Referrer Groups.
CDN.
Extensions.
Install.
User Agents Groups
Basically, this section is used to create cache groups, that is, types of cache that will be served according to groups. For example, it would be useful to filter user agents on mobile devices that receive one type of cache, while user agents on a desktop device receive another type of cache. In other words, it is useful to show different content to some user agents and to others.
User Agents Groups
Referrer Groups
It is similar to the above and allows us to serve a different type of cache, that is, a different cache content to each group of referrals, that is, those people who come referred from a specific web page.
Referrer Groups
CDN
The CDN section is one of the most advanced in W3 and one of the most useful, giving us the option to choose from a large list of CDNs, and even to create our own CDN.
W3 is very flexible and allows us to decide which elements we add to the CDN and which ones we don't.
The CDN section is one of the most important and one that we should always keep in mind.
Extensions
W3 brings certain modules that we should know, such as:
Cloudflare. This allows us to integrate our website with Cloudflare. Its integration is not necessary.
Feedburner.
Genesis Framework. Adapts the functioning of W3 to Genesis themes.
Wordpress SEO by Yoast. What it does is add the sitemap to the page cache tab in a much easier way.
None of the extensions are essential to run W3, but in certain situations they can be quite helpful.
Monitoring
It is a service that allows us to integrate with New Relic, which allows us to observe the performance of the PHP response, and also allows us to have a vision from the developer's point of view.
Install
It is undoubtedly one of the most advanced sections of W3 and gives us information such as:
It tells us the privileges used by our Wordpress folders.
It tells us the information that .htacess files should have in general.
It allows us to install modules on our server.
Well, this is all the advanced configuration that W3 has.
We have reached the end of this W3 manual. I hope that it will be very useful for you to get the most out of this plugin, and above all, that it will guide you step by step on how to configure W3 Total Cache in just 5 minutes .
What Cache plugin do you use?
Do you have any questions about how to configure the cache in Wordpress?
If you liked the manual, you can share it with a friend.