Wordpress

W3 Total Cache Plugin Review

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WordPress is one of the most powerful platforms for blogging. Site speed is an important aspect of every website and one needs to make sure that the site is able to sustain huge loads of traffic without crashing. W3 Total Cache plugin is a popular plugin used to make the site load faster and reduce the site load. It is the fastest WordPress performance optimization plugin. This plugin has been designed to improve user experience and page speed. Let’s have a closer look at working of W3 Total Cache and how it can improve your website performance.

W3 Total Cache plugin

When you activate this plugin, you will need to configure some files like change file permissions of your wp-content folder to 755. Although most default settings work fine for most users, you can configure each feature independently. You can decide whether CSS and Javascript is minified or define length of time in browser cache.

Here are some of the noteworthy features:

1)   Minify

W3 Total Cache helps you minify HTML, Javascript as well as CSS files. This will remove all white-spaces in the files and make them smaller.

W3 Total Cache plugin

2)   CDN integration

This plugin successfully integrates with most Content Delivery Networks that accepts FTP uploads. CDN offloads the static content of the site which speeds us the rendering of your site on the browser since all elements are not loading from the same hosting server. Here is a short list of popular CDN’s.

3)   Caching

W3 Total Cache Plugin offers caching abilities such as Page Cache, Browser Cache, Database Cache and more. Page Cache creates static cache pages for each page that is loaded. When you enable it, you will find significant decline in the load time while improving performance. Browser Cache is where all static files are stored. For example, you visit a website, the browser downloads all images, Javascript etc in a temporary folder and when you go to other page of same website, site loads faster. This helps to provide better browsing experience to your users.

An excellent feature of this plugin is that it requires no theme modifications or .htaccess modifications. It is designed to optimize all practical hosting environments.


Pros:

  • Improves website performance
  • Enhances user experience
  • Provides transparent CDN integration
  • Bandwidth savings

Cons:

  • It does not completely reduce server load
  • Fairly a complicated plugin
  • Requires maintenance
  • Wrong settings can disable your site

Final Thoughts

When you are looking to improve your site load time and improve user experience, W3 Total Cache plugin is a good choice. It does not require you to make any changes in WordPress or theme or plugins. It typically takes 1 to 2 hours to set up the whole plugin depending upon the website type, content, activity and theme. When you have CDNs and the time to experiment, W3 Total Cache could make a significant difference to the speed of your WordPress website or blog.

Let us know your views about W3 Total Cache Plugin in the comments below.

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