WP Rocket Recommended Settings for Impressive Performance

Written By Peter L

On July 18, 2021
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WP Rocket Plugin

With the growth of your website over time, you start to get more visitors, and therefore, the chances are that you might see lagging and a few crashes as well. The main reason is that you have optimized your website for a specific number of visitors, and the website is not able to accommodate the expanding numbers. Speed optimization is required in this scenario. In order to make WordPress make any page recompile efficiently, many people have started using WP Rocket and this article speaks about wp rocket recommended settings.

WP Rocket is undoubtedly the best premium WordPress cache plugin, and because of its abundant features, it is considered a replacement of several other plugins combined. As this plugin is loaded with great specialties, it can be a little confusing to have supreme performance and page speed, mainly if you don’t have expertise with WordPress caching. Consequently, it is vital to possess WP Rocket recommended settings.

In order to make your website load faster, you may be looking for the top caching plugins that WordPress users highly recommend. PageSpeedy.io is one such plugin that preloads the pages instantly and is also specially designed to fix any issues that can become a hurdle in fast page speed loading. PageSpeedy is capable of restricting the number of preloads per second, thus saving a website from crashing or slowing down because of so many links on the pages.

How is site performance improved by WP Rocket?

WP Rocket and WP Engine

The method of storing the static elements of a webpage in order to be quicker the next time when needed is known as Caching. When your web page is visited for the first time by a site visitor, it spends some of your hosting resources as it got fetched by the server.

When you install the WP Rocket plugin, a cache version of your page is created by it that serves the same visitor the next time. Other than that, Cache-Control headers are also added by WP Rocket to the static resources in order to get HTTP caching. On the mouse hover, this enables preloading of the web pages, and therefore, the perceived loading time is optimized as well as the performance of the web pages after consecutive visits.

wp rocket recommended settings

How to Setup WP Rocket recommended settings in a correct manner?

Installation and activation of the plugin

You can start by logging into the WordPress site and register yourself as an administrator. You will find ‘Plugins’ in the menu on the left-hand side of the screen. By clicking it, you will see a pop-up quickly appearing next to it. After that, Add Plugins will open up, and in the search box, you will write the name of your plugin. Find the plugin in the list and then click ‘Activate.’

You also have the option to go to the WP Rocket plugin site and sign up for its license by choosing one of its three paid plans. When you finish installing the plugin, it will be easy to find the plugin in the Settings menu available on the left side of the account screen of WordPress. You can click on the ‘Save Changes’ key in order to preserve all of the settings that you will be executing.

WP Rocket best settings

Dashboard

The Dashboard will be the top-most menu that you will see when the WP Rocket plugin is opened. This particular menu displays the license status, plugin’s expiry date, and any other related information. You will also see the Frequently Asked Questions section in the Dashboard, and this section can help you with any aspect of the plugin that confuses you with speed optimization.

You can also go for the ‘Rocket Tester’ button that will mark you as an active participant in their beta testing program. This way, WP Rocket can anonymously collect any data.

  • Remove cache files

This particular feature is very helpful in removing all of the cached files. After you finish configuring all of the WP Rocket recommended settings, you can go with this procedure.

 

  • Start cache preloading

This function generates cache and all of the internal links on the homepage.

 

  • Purge the OpCache content

OpCache is purged by this particular function, which is helpful for the prevention of any problems that may arise when WP Rocket is updated.

Asset Cleanup pro vs WP Rocket

Cache

The cache menu is the second one on the screen and is separated into three different sections. It is worth noting that Asset Cleanup pro has the same features as WP Rocket, and if you combine both of these, they can detect each other and pair. Therefore, both can function in a helpful way when comparing Asset Cleanup pro vs WP Rocket.

  • Mobile Cache

With this particular option, the website becomes more mobile-friendly and helps visitors access WP Rocket. You also need to enable separate cache files for the mobile for WP Rocket to run in a better way which in turn makes the slow loading of sites drop.

 

  • User Cache

If you own a website with a membership system, this particular option will offer a better experience to your members when logged in. If you don’t have this system, then you will find this function to be useless; therefore, using this option entirely depends on the nature of your website.

 

  • Cache Lifespan

With the help of this section, you are able to know the amount of time your cache files will remain on the server before you remove them automatically. Your site will get busier if the value is lowered. The number of hours should always be set in single digits for the sites that have more visitors, but the ones having fewer visitors can offer more flexibility.

wp rocket best settings

WP Rocket recommended settings for File optimization

File optimization is the third menu in the list.

  • Minification

With this function, the size of the files is reduced as it removes the white spaces between the codes. Although it makes a little difference in terms of site performance, some minified files are responsible for causing issues with your site code. Therefore, it is important to go into the source code in order to check whether JavaScript, HTML, or CSS are doing it. To check the speeds of your website and look at analytics we recommend using GTmetrix.

 

  • Combining files

With the ‘Combine’ option, all of the functions are merged together into a single file, and this can surely increase your site’s performance by reducing the number of HTTP requests. The combination of CSS and JS files can be a great option if the site is running on HTTP/1, but in the case of HTTP/2, you can only combine the Google fonts.

 

  • Removing query migration

With the help of this function, the version query string gets removed, and the version number is directly encoded into the URL. With this, the browser can quickly locate the important files, and the server and the browser get a faster connection.

 

 

 

  • Optimizing CSS delivery

When we load a site, the CSS files get interspersed with the HTML code to process more slowly, and this is the cause of the slow rendering of the page. With CSS optimization, the page rendering time gets speed up by processing the CSS files, and therefore, it allows HTML files to be processed and faster page load.

 

WP Rocket best settings: Media

The media menu gets divided into three main sections.

With this feature, the images and thumbnails will only load when the visitor views them and scrolls down far enough on the page to the location of these images and thumbnails. Because of this, the initial load time is reduced significantly.

 

  • Replacing YouTube iframe

Your performance gets impaired if you have a running background video or gif on the page. With this particular function, the background video gets replaced with a simple thumbnail that is placed on the YouTube video.

asset cleanup pro vs wp rocket

  • Emoji

It is worth noting that the Emojis can slow down a site, and if you enable this function in the WP Rocket best settings, you can disable the use of the Emojis. Although the default Emojis would still be there, you will get rid of any additional HTTP requests affecting the speed of the website.

 

  • Embeds

The users are prevented from embedding your site’s content because of this function, and it is also helpful in preventing you from embedding content from other sites.

 

WP Rocket best settings: Preload

  • Preload cache
    • Preloading activation

When you enable preloading, a cache warning gets triggered when the content is added or updated, which means that the visitors can quickly meet the cached pages. This option is also important to enable if you want other preloading functions to work properly.

 

  • Sitemap-based cache preloading

If you want to allow the WP Rocket plugin to cache all of the necessary URLs found in the sitemap, then you need to enable this function.

 

 

  • Preload links

The user can manually enter the links with the help of this function.

 

  • Prefetch DNS requests

The URLs entered available in this section will be loading faster because if you have an administrator entering the URLs of the site that they would like the website to link to, the DNS gets acquired in advance, and therefore, the speed gets quicker.

 

  • Preload fonts

The user can manually enter any fonts with this function, and this would certainly help WP Rocket best settings to preload automatically.

wp optimize vs wp rocket

WP Optimize vs WP Rocket

WP Rocket best settings: Database

WP Rocket allows spring cleaning of the database, and when we compare WP Optimize vs WP Rocket, you will find WP Rocket to be doing the job a lot faster with plenty of cleanup options.

  • Posts cleanup

It deletes any drafts, trashed posts, and revisions, but you need to exclude modifications from the post-cleanup if you like to use them or are planning to use them in the future.

 

  • Comments cleanup

This section deletes the trashed comments and spam.

 

  • Transient cleanup

The data required by your plugins to run efficiently is known as transient. You can safely remove these as each of the plugins can generate them when you need them.

 

  • Database cleanup

This section optimizes the data tables in order to make them run smoothly.

 

  • Automatic cleanup

From here, you can make the WP Rocket recommended settings regarding how you want it to clean up everything. Normally a monthly cleanup is considered optimal unless you are running an active and continuously changing blog.

 

RocketCDN

If you have a global presence and you have an audience all over the globe, then CDNs or Content Delivery Networks can be great if you wish your site to load quickly. With the cooperation of WP Rocket, you can catch up with the current CDN account. Normally BunnyCDN, StackPath, and Cloudflare are recommended, but you can also use the proprietary service Rocketcdn.

WP Rocket vs Cloudflare

Whatever you do depends on your and your site’s requirements, but it is always better to check where each of the CDN has most of the servers. If you have a lot of traffic from one region and a particular CDN has all the servers across the continent, then you can use one with Cloudflare CDN and improve the SEO of your site.

 

 

Heartbeat

Your WP-admin area and the drain server resources can be slowed down because of the hyperactive WordPress Heartbeat function. It is not easy to limit Heartbeat for the majority of bloggers, but it is possible to disable it without losing any of the WordPress site functionality.

This is one of the WP Rocket recommended settings to reduce the WordPress heartbeat and then watch at its outcome on your site’s execution. If you still have any speed issues later on, then you can stop Heartbeat completely.

 

Image optimization

Imagify is the exclusive image optimization plugin for WP Rocket because, in order to operate with it, it is harmonized out of the box. This is surely an excellent plugin having the capacity to optimize your current images in bulk, and in the future, it will be able to auto-optimize each of the photos that will be uploaded.

You will undoubtedly find equally good and even better image optimization plugins out there in the market.  WP Rocket and WP Engine both have these extraordinary features, but the main issue is that there are a number of plugins that may cost some money. On the other hand, you will find Imagify to be completely free, and it will be bundled with WP Rocket.

rocketcdn

Add-ons

Different add-ons on WP Rocket can be authorized to stretch its functionality. You need to activate the appropriate add-on for whatever service you are to use. When we look at the add-on feature of WP Rocket vs Cloudflare, you will find plenty of dynamic add-ons that can be used.

  • Google Analytics

With this WP Rocket add-on, your site will host Google Analytics scripts on the server locally. This way, the speed of your site will get faster, and any errors in Google Page Speed Insights will be fixed.

 

  • Facebook Pixel

With this, you are able to expect that the Facebook Pixel is hosted locally on your server.

 

  • Varnish

If you are hosting with other hosts that use Varnish Cache, then you can install this add-on and improve page loading speeds.

 

Final Words

With the help of WP Rocket recommended settings, it is possible to speed up your site’s efficiency and increase load speed. On the other hand, it is right to some extent that if you enable all of the features together, you might be doing more harm than good. As long as you stick to the WP Rocket best settings, all of your functions will be working together and, therefore, help to optimize your website. This way, your visitors will be experiencing as little lag as possible.

Also Read: Ultimate WooCommerce SEO Guide 2021

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