Can you be more specific of which functions/scripts can be excluded, so I can use the advanced caching functions of W3? Excluding scripts, database and CSS doesn’t leave much for caching…
Purpose of caching is to serve the PAGES very quickly. As per the note in the docs, you should use “page cache ONLY” to avoid issues with things getting cached you don’t want to be static for a long long time. Others will likely provide more detailed answer, but the simplest one for using W3 is here in the docs:
https://forum.tagdiv.com/w3-total-cache-configuration/
You can, of course, “experiment” with caching with any theme/site – it’s your site. But, you don’t want database cached or updates wouldn’t be loaded on indexes or front page.
But best to err on side of paranoia. Also be sure to do full site backup before enabling any cache plugin. And make sure the plugin is running at same user permission level as the ftpuser vs the server/apache as that was a big implosion of doom on one of our sites!
That may not have been perfect answer.
The documentation does not put anything in “Browser Cache” what think? Can we enable you to improve performance? or we stick only to activate “Page Cache?
I would stick with ONLY enabling Page Cache.
And now … my morning soapbox: brought to you by clean living and cute kittens ….
Remember that if you’re using the TagDiv Speed Booster plugin, it is MOVING things around on the page for better performance when the page is loaded. You do not want the dynamic stuff cached or it won’t show updates to things on pages. Your home page would not show new items, categories wouldn’t show new items, sidebars wouldn’t show new, recent, related, etc.
So, you only want to enable the page cache which will basically serve up a snapshot of the page and not the dynamic stuff which is still called via php.
Newspaper type sites are way more complex than say, a blog about raising rabbits on a farm, or a bicycling blog updated once a month. If you have content updated daily, or even hourly, caching can help with speed and limit load on server, but it can be TRICKY to optimize for YOUR particular website, due to how elements are loaded on pages, where they are, what other optimizations are running, etc.
There truly is no “one click” caching option for any busy, complex website. Blogs sure. Complex websites need to be tweaked for advanced tools like caching, just like all the other tweaks not built-in to WordPress, or the theme.
So, for most advanced users, there is trial and error – nothing to do with the theme, and not covered by support team for your particular use.
The theme devs have “recommended” you only use Page Cache, as that is how they achieve their own high speed rating/score.
So, you may wish to
1) fully optimize your site, outside of caching!
2) enable tagdiv speed booster and make sure nothing breaks if you’re using some kind of external plugin which might conflict with the optimizations (on our site the < > arrows disappear in 3.6, with WP 3.8.1; with 3.5 the slide out “you might like” broke) — you have to decide if this is a benefit for you or not; YOU need to test, decide, then either use or not for YOUR particular solution
3) make trusted backups of your site before doing any caching!!
4) enable W3C and use page cache only; test your site — either determine if it works for you or not, and some trade offs, and if there are workarounds for some things like page counters, random or recent dynamic elements, etc. — and there are forum posts on issues other have faced with using specific plugins, or with certain features in use (e.g., JetPack, forms, membership, bbpress, etc.)
5) adjust, test, adjust, test.
If you have no idea how to do any of that you likely would need to hire a developer at an hourly rate. Or, do what most of us do which is trial, error, forums, Google search, test, retest, learn, fail, learn.
The reason there is no simple “how to” for caching, is that there are a hundred things which might be impacted by that if you turn on every option in the theme and load up a dozen external plugins.
In a perfect world, for caching, the average joe might try this:
1) setup the theme with only the basic functions; no special menu, no JetPack, no “counters” for social media reads, one ad management system or AdSense.
2) enable tagDiv Speed Booster BETA plugin to optimize the placement of the CSS, JS components, Google fonts, et al.
3) put in the basic optimizations: a) gzip/deflate at server level, b) htaccess, c) image optimization tweaks (plugin, and/or functions.php mod from my speed posts)
4) W3C or other caching with minimal page caching settings.
5) test site.
6) turn on the “fun” features like megamenu, jetpack, forms, social reads/likes; choose what works; what doesn’t — either find workaround or don’t use.
There is ALWAYS a tradeoff between speed and features. You can’t have 100 add-ons and have the speed of a site with 15 add-ons. So, YOU need to decide if speed vs features matters, or other way around.
Hope that helps somebody!
Copr. © 2014 Christopher Simmons.
thank you very much for your answer, I just enabled “Page Cache” and the truth is that I have good results results.
GTmetrix: http://prntscr.com/39fk62
Pingdom: http://prntscr.com/39flf9
PageSpeed Insights: http://prntscr.com/39flqp
What do you think?
Looks good! Great job 🙂
