Tag: WordPress

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New WordPress Recommendations – Google Search Console, Caching, XML Sitemaps

WordPress LogoThere are a few resources and plugins that I recommend for any new WordPress powered sites.  When I start a new site one of the first things I want to do is set up the Google Search Console.  You can read more about the Google Search Console on Google’s Support Site.

With the Google Search Console you can do the following and more:

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Are your sites up to date? It is very important that they are. Find out why!

Update!Many of us run websites using pre-made scripts such as WordPress, Joomla, or Xenforo. Far too often people forget to keep these scripts up-to-date. In other cases, they choose not to upgrade as they feel updating can be difficult.

Whatever your situation, please take a moment to ensure all of the scripts (including themes, plugins, mods, and so on) are fully up to date. Check right now – I’ll wait.

Are you up to date?

If anything isn’t up to date, it’s a good time to start planning on doing those updates. If you already know what you’re doing, you have good backups, and the risks of updating are low, do the updates as soon as possible.

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Configuring W3 Total Cache, W3TC, for Optimum Performance with Disk Cache for Shared Hosting – Optimizing WordPress

WordPress LogoIn this article I will be explaining how to configure W3 Total Cache, hereafter referred to as ‘W3TC’, to cache your site and to serve that cache statically via mod_rewrite for maximum performance.

You will need to install W3TC via your “wp-admin” -> “Plugins” -> “Add New” if it is not already installed.  One the installation is complete you will want to activate the plugin.  Once activated you can click on “Performance” in the left navigation of your “wp-admin”.  This will drop you at a dashboard where W3TC is trying to sell all kinds of upgrades.  I will not be discussing those upgrades in this article.

Continue reading “Configuring W3 Total Cache, W3TC, for Optimum Performance with Disk Cache for Shared Hosting – Optimizing WordPress”

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Configuring WP Super Cache for Optimum Performance – Optimizing WordPress

WordPress LogoIn this article I will explain how to optimize your WordPress Super Cache to use mod_rewrite to serve your cache files fast and efficiently.  The installation defaults are not ideal and will only help with the most resource-intensive sites.  When optimized properly WP Super Cache can greatly increase visitor concurrency as well as reduce your bounce rate.

We have users running WordPress on shared hosting and getting anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 unique visitors per day without issues while we have other customers that seem to struggle to handle more than a few concurrent users at once – both on the same type of plan!  The difference between the two comes down to optimization.

One of the most important things you can do to increase the performance and reduce the resource usage of WordPress is to install and properly configure a caching plugin.  The plugins we see most often are WP Super Cache ans W3 Total Cache.  In this article I’m going to be discussing WP Super Cache.

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