HOW EASILY INSTALL AND SET UP PLUS CONFIG W3 TOTAL CACHE IN WORDPRESS IN 2019
EASILY INSTALL AND CONFIG W3 TOTAL CACHE IN WORDPRESS
HOW EASILY INSTALL AND SET UP PLUS CONFIG W3 TOTAL CACHE IN WORDPRESS IN 2019
Page speed is important for a better user experience and also for SEO. In WordPress, there are many cache plugins available. But out of all of them, WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache (W3TC) are my favorite. The major difference between these two plugin is: Super cache is easy to configure where as W3TC has too many options & you need to configure extensively.
I have heard a lot of good things about the W3 Total Cache plugin. It’s a lot like WP Super Cache, but with more options. In particular, if you are planning on using a CDN, the W3 Total Cache plugin is really great.
To speed up loading time, I’m using MaxCDN on my blog network. To supplement this, I also tested out the W3 Total Cache plugin.
This test was performed on my WordPress hosting blog.
Search for “W3 Total Cache” from the “Add new plugin” section in the WordPress dashboard. Or you can download the plugin from here and manually upload it to your server.
If you are new to WordPress, this guide will help you install a plugin: How To Install A WordPress Plugin.
Note: Make sure to uninstall the WP Super Cache plugin or any other WordPress cache plugin.
How To Configure W3 Total Cache
The setup options in W3 Total Cache are much more advanced than those in WP Super Cache. But don’t get confused! I’ll show you how I’ve set it up on my blog, and you can review and copy the settings for your own site.
Once you have installed and activated W3 Total Cache, go to Performance - General and enable everything you want to cache. Later on, you can make changes to individual settings and fine tune your W3TC configuration.
When you are done, click on “Save all settings”.
After making changes, click on “Preview” to check if everything is OK. If everything looks good, click on “Deploy” to make these settings live.
All of the settings in “Minify” are also plug and play.
But if you are not using a CDN, you might want to disable “Automatically upload modified files”.
How To Uninstall W3 Total Cache WordPress Plugin
At times, due to hosting compatibility issues or non-compatibility with other plugins, W3 Total Cache can act weird. In these instances, it’s important to uninstall W3 total cache to make sure it’s not creating issues.
It’s also important to uninstall it correctly, or you will have even more issues in the future.
sometimes, W3 Total Cache interacts strangely with another current plugin, and you might get weird issues like 404 errors or your entire blog might be redirected to Install.php.
A possible solution to this problem is to uninstall W3 Total Cache.
Here’s a quick tutorial on how you can remove the W3 Total Cache plugin manually.
First, delete all cache and deactivate the W3 Total Cache plugin.
Delete the W3 Total Cache plugin from the Wp-content/plugins folder.
Remove this line from Wp-config file – (define(‘WP_CACHE’, true) )
Delete advanced-cache.php, db.php, wp-total-cache-config.php, and delete the entire w3tc folder from the Wp-content folder.
Check the .htaccess file; if you see any code added by W3 Total Cache, remove it.
Many options in this plugin are plug and play. If you follow this tutorial, you should have no problems setting it up.
Using a cache plugin in addition to a CDN will help dramatically decrease the load time of your website. And a faster site means a better ranking and a better user experience. If you aren’t caching and using a CDN, you need to start doing that today.
Do let us know: Which caching plugin are you using? Share your experience in the comments below!