Setting Up and Optimizing WP Super Cache for Your Blog
It's pretty darn super.
[This post is part of the Ultimate Guide to Launching a WordPress-Powered Blog series.]
WP Super Cache is one of the top caching plugins for WordPress out there. In fact, it’s been downloaded more than 2 million times! (Not sure what blog caching is? Check out this post before you proceed!)
And the volume of installations are definitely an indication of it’s success in doing what most people need and that’s why I recommending it as a caching plugin for many clients and bloggers.
In fact, I use it for many of the properties that I actively manage! Here are a few:
And many more! Those are just a few that have been optimized for use of the plugin. This includes the WordPress Theme itself, plugins, server/hosting setup, and especially the WP Super Cache plugin itself.
As a result I highly recommend that you take a look at installing this for most (if not all) blogs – and it’s definitely essential to include as an option (of the many WordPress caching options) as you do your research for the right caching plugin!
Setting Up WP Super Cache:
I’d like to take a few moments to not only walk you through installing this plugin but also provide a place where you can ask questions or get help via the comment section below. It’s not too hard of a process but there are always some installation questions that typically crop up that I hope I can help with.
1. Download it
The first step is to simply download it either via your WordPress plugin dashboard or to upload it via an FTP editor (I use these apps for uploading and downloading):
Type it in like above and hit 'Search Plugins'
It should be the first result. Go ahead and then hit install:
Install that bad boy!
Now, if you have to manually install it just head over to the WordPress.org page here, download it to your desktop, unzip it, and then manually use an FTP application to put it into your wp-content/plugins folder:
Go get it!
And that should be it!
2. Activate the Plugin
The next step is to simply go to your Plugins menu item in your WordPress admin panel and then Activate the plugin:
Activate it like your life depended on it.
It should automatically be setup and then in disabled mode:
You'll have to work with some of the settings.
Go ahead and jump to the admin page and you may see a few errors and/or notices.
3. Setup WP Super Cache
It is very common for people to see the following error:
Drat!
Essentially the plugin cannot properly complete the installation because it can’t create the right folders and files to work properly. Typically the issue can be quickly solved by making sure that your wp-content folder has the right permissions, which to get it installed you’ll need to change it to 777.
You can either do this through a web-based interface that your hosting provider has for you or via an FTP editor application.
Here’s what it might look like via an FTP editor:
Change permissions via FTP app.
And here’s what you might have to deal with via a web-based interface (this is using Dreamhost‘s interface):
chmod wp-content folder via web interface.
Of course your web interface might look different.
Once you fix this then you’ll be able to continue setting up the system. You might also experience this issue as well:
Need some pretty permalinks!
The plugin requires that you have a pretty permalink structure for your blog content. Luckily I have the perfect blog post for you! Check this post here about the optimal permalink structure for your WordPress blog!
Set that up and you can continue on your merry way!
The next notice you might get is that WordPress has installed a new line of code into the wp-config.php file:
This is a good thing.
What WordPress is essentially doing here is adding a variable to enable caching through your WordPress blog. You don’t have to pay attention to this unless WordPress is again unable to add this line of code into your wp-config.php file. If it can’t then you’ll have to modify the permissions again of the folders/files to allow the system access to that file.
One this is good to go you will most likely be able to start setting up the system properly. Please note that many of you will also see this warning about the wp-content folder being “writeable” and that’s fine – you’ll want to revert back to chmod 755 after you finish setting up the plugin:
Fix this warning after you fully setup the plugin.
4. Adjusting Configuration
The next few steps will be entirely dependent on your server and hosting configuration and what options might be optimal for your blog.
Now, before you do anything further make sure you’ve backed up your WordPress blog! Adjusting some of these settings could “break” your blog and in some instances make it very difficult to recover! This is your fair warning! I recommend checking out these 3 ways to backup your blog!
After you’ve done that you can now proceed!
For starters, go ahead and just hit the “Easy” button and see what happens:
That was... easy.
For many you might just stop right there and for many blogs this will do just fine. Guess what, you’re done!
But, if you’re interested in getting even more performance out of your blog then you might want to adjust some of the advanced settings. Please note that every blog and hosting situation will be different and some of these will help your blog even more and some of them might actually make your blog slower!
The point here is that you’re going to want to check with your hosting provider and also experiment with the settings to find out what is the most optimal. Here are some settings that, if you can get to work well, are the most optimal:
Click for larger view.
Again, I must re-iterate that you must test and experiment to see if it works the best.
A few things that you may also have to do is adjust your .htaccess file:
Error! Must update your .htaccess file!
Once you update your .htaccess file you should see the following screen:
Green means good!
Great! You’re all set.
5. Test It
The final part of the process is to simply test out the system to make sure that everything is working. Head over to the first tab and hit Test Cache:
Timestamps don't match! Uh oh...
If you get this notice above then something is wrong! What you want to see is this:
Ding ding ding! You are a winner!
Of course, don’t forget to simply check out your site in a different browser so that it can pull the cached version of your site.
You can always check the code of your blog via your browser and you should see something at the very end of the code like this to confirm that caching is in fact working:
Yup. Working!
It should be substantially faster than before!
6. Additional Features
You may have some advanced needs for your blog and WP Super Cache has them for you! Some of you have a mobile version of your blog and so you’ll want to enable mobile-ready engagement with your blog with this setting in Advanced:
Mobile!
Also, some of you may want to use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) in tandem with the caching system and that’s fine too.
It’s a somewhat advanced section that I may cover in more detail later but if you’re even at this point of needing one then you probably already have the technical chops to get it installed already. 99 out of 100 bloggers (actually, more than this) will never really need a CDN.
But, I’ve created a tutorial here on how to install a CDN on a WordPress blog just in case. You’ll be able to use this blog post to help you add a CDN to WP Super Cache.
Whew! I hope this overview and installation walk through was helpful!
As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments and let me know if you need help getting it setup! It’s a great solution and should serve you, your blog, and your readers well!
[This post is part of the Ultimate Guide to Launching a WordPress-Powered Blog series.]
Wow so in depth! I did install this last month after reading about others using it. I ran into some memory exceeds problem but fixed that with my host. That may be a common problem too as I found when I was Googling how to fix it.
Is there any need to “delete cached pages” at any time?
Happy Easter John!
perhaps if you’re having trouble seeing a change that you’ve made in your system or theme.
or if you’ve deleted content and it’s still showing up.
As we speak of cache and plugins for the past days I revisited a site that has a review of most common plugins. though it was kind of old I think it was still helpful. (http://bit.ly/e15K8I)
From there I installed Hyper Cache by Satollo and DB cache reloaded. It was doing good. Also DB cache reloaded wasn’t recently updated and found people who says also says that it was broken I uninstalled it.
I tried W3 Total Cache but it was eating up disk space. Learned from Satollo that double plugins weren’t really having any advantage so I decided to just go with one. I stayed with Hyper Cache.
Just earlier I was thinking of changing plugins cause I noticed that my site was having slow load times. I searched for some reviews with wp super cache. It’s pretty ok with ups and downs.
I decided to go with Quick Cache. Thanks for the write up. I might consider Wp super cache but would just experiment with Quick Cache for a while.
it’s definitely not good to have two or more at the same time unless you know what you’re doing.
John, wow, what a great tutorial this is. I wanted to test a caching plugin for a while, but I didn’t know where to begin. Thanks for providing such a detailed guide.
sure thing cris!
I tried W3 Cache in the past. I did not like it. It should be called W3 Crash. Anyway, I think I will try WP Super Cache, and post my results here.
Thanks for the helpful guide.
Not bad. My load time was cut in half. Is that possible?
it’s very possible.
I’ve been using WP Super Cache for awhile and it does appear to speed things up.
One difficulty surfaced, interestingly enough, when I first converted my blog to Standard Theme. I couldn’t the CSS changes I was making to show up. After a couple of hours of frustration, I realized it was Super Cache. I experimented with deleting the cache. Then with turning cache off. Then I discovered I simply didn’t have any of the recommended advanced settings on, one of which was:
Don’t cache pages for known users. (Recommended)
Turned it on, and haven’t looked back since.
We have been on super cache for several years and it is an amazing caching plugin. This an excellent tutorial for those getting started with it. It is must have for any wordpress blog.
it’s a good plugin to use at first… and stay with for quite some time!
Thanks John. I have been wanting to add a cache plugin, but was waiting for you to hit on the subject. I knew you would eventually.
Thanks for the great resource.
sure thing adam!
Brilliance as always, John.
Thanks for this. Looking forward to Part Deux!
Again….rockin’ post John. I’ll join the resounding redundancy of THANK YOU’s. I didn’t really feel my site took too long to load, but after slammin’ this bad boy on the site I couldn’t believe the noticeable difference in load time.
Simple install…no crashing…happy me!
andy,
that’s awesome! congrats on this one!
Wow! I had no idea about this before now! After reading this I am definitely going to implement this tonight! Thanks
sure thing zack!
don’t forget to get a gavatar: http://tentblogger.com/gravatar/
John, anything you recommend I am on! Went right through your post, tabbed and clicked exactly the way you show it. Works perfectly. Awesomeness!!
great! glad it worked!
thanks so much for this! it works perfectly on my site. Question though- is there anything to say that caching will affect website statistics results?
it shouldn’t affect negatively your stats.
Bob, I read your post with interest as I am weighing up staying with WP Super Cache or moving to WP Total Cache. I know there are big debates online between which one is faster.
I then noticed that you have a link at the bottom of your WP Super Cache article – this one – which goes to an article on how to set up CDN with a caching plugin.
I was quite surprised to read that in that article you state that you use WP Total Cache for your sites and your CDN and that it is your favourite cache plugin.
I was about to apply for a static ip address for my bluehost blog until I read about cdns and it looks like buying cdn space will speed up my site more than a static ip address. So I began searching online for info on WP caching plugins and cdns.
The problem is setting up a caching plugin to work with cdns and from what I can make out it looks like WP Total Cache is easier to set up to work with a cdn like Amazon Cloudfront than the WP Super Cache plugin.
Do you have any thoughts on this?
Thank you.
are you talking to me? who’s… “bob”…?
Oops, I have lost it… I am talking to myself now John… lol…
This is what happens when you get up at 9AM, sit all day in front of the PC and only realise it is late when lots of Californians start logging on…
I meant that question for you John and for anyone else interested…
I am going for a cup of tea and a lie down.
do you really need all that speed right now? what is your current blog’s traffic? are you on a shared server?
Yes, I am on a shared server John… I am based in the UK but my server is bluehost in the US.
I went with bluehost as it has a dedicated wordpress install and they update their servers pretty quick. There really was not any web hoster in the UK offering the similar.
I also wanted to target a global audience, but I am noticing lag on viewing my pages here in the UK. I assume that is because of the hops it takes to reach my bluehost server from the UK.
I assume that someone in the US, with less hops to reach it, would get a faster response.
you’re right about that. a cdn could help provide that world-wide reach, for sure.
Hello i want to setup expire headers via the plugin,can i do that?
not sure you can do that on wp super cache. you can with w3 total cache: http://tentblogger.com/w3-total-cache/
Hello John,
I came over to your site from WPCandy and am so glad that I did. I had installed W3 Total Cache, which improved my load-times from BlueHost on a dedicated IP, but I hadn’t implemented the CDN; it seemed too complicated. I was at WPCandy to get better instructions for implementing a self-hosted CDN. Brian mentioned your name and provided a link to your W3 total cache page. After reading that, I was convinced that I didn’t have the skills needed to implement W3, took your advice and came over here. I will implement wp super cache today. My primary purpose in writing this note is to compliment you on your writing skills and on the way you clearly convey just the right amount of information. Well done! and thanks for doing what you do. I’ve subscribed to your email RSS and look forward to reading more of your blog. Boyd Carter
boyd,
thanks so much! i really appreciate it. i love what i do and i love helping others get there as well!
thanks for subscribing and enjoy!
I use the landing sites plugin in on a lot of my sites. What it does is if someone lets say types in Short Wave Radios in Google and clicks on my link it would say
Hey you came from google lookingfor short wave radios, here are some posts associated with that and it would grab a few posts that i have on short wave radios.
I found with super cache it often would not work, specially if the user has been to my site before as it picked up his old search
any thoughts or alternative plugins to that?
huh. honestly i’m not sure…
its good i found another plugin called greet box, its newer then my old one and it supports cache
sweet!
This is great!
Ive been using W3 Cache but had no end of problems with it. Used your guide and my site is flying!
Thanks!
awesome! that’s what i like to hear!
John,
Can you write a bit about the “Preload” option in this plugin? Is it a good or bad idea?
it’s a good feature. it’ll take some time, but have the system walk through all your pages and get them prepped for users and search engines.
Hi John,
Been trying cache solutions and even though i already had wp super cache setup wanted to research how others had set it up and their advice. Hence I’m on your website! Great guide, advice and well written. I think the only thing for me now to explore is CDN, but that is for another day.
All the best
Andrew
sure thing andrew! let me know if you have any questions.
Hi John,
I have an unrelated question if you don’t mind. The bar you’ve got setup next to the comments to tweet, share, stumble etc. Can you please tell me what the plugin is called sir?
Cheers
Andrew
andrew,
that’s actually built right into my theme…! http://tentblogger.com/standard-theme/
Hi John,
Cheers for getting back to me with the details. Nice theme.
All the best
Andrew
sure thing andrew!
Thank you for your excellent articles on caching. I had installed W3 Total Cache but it was too complicated for me. Your tutorials showed me that WP Super Cache is the best choice with my limited knowledge.
awesome kyle! it should serve you well.
Oh oh…how to fix this?:
**************DELETED COMMENT*****************
gave away his database info. whoops!
um… you just shared your username and password to your database… that is not good.
As administrator maybe you can remove it? I Have sent you and email about the same tpoic
What a way to expose my own idiocy…
yes.
Hi John,
I have had this running for about a week and I thought it was working as I noticed a slight increase in page loading time (I thought) but I have just checked my page via the browser (inspect page) and I see that I get a message “page not cached by WP super cache. check your settings page” I have checked all of the settings and all seem ok and there are no error messages on the plugin page and I have followed all of your above advise.
any ideas what may be causing this?
cheers
hmm. what is your server/hosting environment?
Hi John,
I think I’ve cracked it, looks like you have to log out.. one of your recommended settings “don’t cache pages for known user” so being logged in I guess picks me up as a known user. and doesn’t cache the page..
good one.
I was stumped by this “not cached error” as well. I already had a closing tag in my theme so that wasn’t it like some other posters. Just logging out sorted it out, thanks!
sweet! great stuff.
This was super helpful, John! Thanks for all you do!
sure thing tony! glad it worked!
This was really helpful. I have one problem since I install WP Super Cache I get Weird characters showing on blog. I don’t know how to fix it? I very new to this. Do you know how to fix this problem?
your .htaccess perms could be messed up.
try adding this:
php_flag zlib.output_compression off
Where in .htaccess do I add php_flag zlib.output_compression off? When I untick Compress pages it seems like it works then the weird characters don’t come up.
uncompressing pages option works as well. you can add that to the top though. experiment…!
you can also put this on wp-config:
ini_set(‘zlib.output_compression’, 0);
Can I ask you a question: for a average blog on a shared platform which is the best: wp super-cache or W3 Total cache? None of these seem to speed up significantly my blog.
Off topic: your website is full of interesting stuff and I read it with pleasure.
Keep up the good work!
Cheers,
Zimbrul
i’d think super cache to start off with. have you set it up properly?
I think I did it but still my home page takes ages to load…not sure why. Yslow gives me a B score which is good but the overall impression is that the page is not loading fast.
hmm. how many plugins are you using? what is your hosting provider?
Hi John,
Currently I’ve got 32 plugins active and my hosting provider is Siteground(shared hosting).
As I said I cannot see any increase in speed as a result of using Wp Super Cache. “Page Speed” gives me a score of 68/100 which is quite bad taking into account there are not too many elements on the page I’d say.
that is a lot of plugins… consider getting rid of more than half.
What’s your opinion on using the CloudFlare program along with say the Super Cache plugin. I added it on a couple of sites and did notice some improvement. They also claim to help with attacks, etc.
i personally haven’t tried it but i’ve “heard” of some great results.
Great tutorial John
Looks as though you have covered everything. LOL
Looking forward to installing, configuring and reporting back.
how did it go?
Hi John,
Echoing the comments about your pedagogical skills, thanks!
I have installed both W3TC and SuperCache and tried both. With W3tc I used their Minify option as well. Following your recommendations for settings, I’ve also experimented and brought the site speed rating from 67% to 90%, and Yslow at 88%.
The site: http://www.iamsignificant.ca and it is hosted with BlueHost. I actually built the site for a client of mine. A membership website using WishList, 17 plugins (down from 27) and 9 widgets.
I also tried using WP-Minify instead of their embedded Minify option. Not much better results. But despite the ratings I get (http://www.gtmetrix.com) both the site and the admin panel were missing some punch in serving the pages.
After going over your settings again, and seeing I only had disk options and no opcode or CDN (what’s that anyway… still can’t figure out what to do where with what and setup in what coding tags) I then went to Supercache and set up the way you suggest, however I get 76% speed and 70% Yslow. Serving isn’t much better either. I’ve been at this for a week and a half trying to optimize this site and my brain is turning into clam chowder…
What am I doing wrong, should I use other plugins to complement Supercache? Or W3TC?
Much appreciated,
Andre
do you really need much more? what are your symptoms of slowdown?
John! This helped a lot, thanks!
I applied the advanced settings and my page loads 4sconds faster now!
Overall it’s still slow though… I’m launching the site in 2 days. Maybe you could take a brief look at it and let me know if there are any other speed-improvements I could do?
Blessings,
Daniel
daniel,
a lot of your challenges might be server related… what’s your hosting solution?
Hi John,
Being that this new Google rule changed the game, speed is a premium. So I tried to get the site to be as quick as possible to surf between pages, posts, menus, etc.
Today I took out Supercache, as it seemed to slow down the site so much it would take close to a minute to load at times, maybe more. Also doing the speed tests at GTMetrix.com, it would time out, waiting to load the site (!).
So I reactivated W3TC and signed up for CloudFlare and so far it seems to be faster. I’ll give it a week and report back if anything changes. BlueHost (my hosting) keeps blaming WordPress and bad written plugins for their throttling us more than an hour over the past 24 hours. Yet they can never help, so they say. But sometimes an agent will take time and be helpful.
Thanks John!
sure thing andre!
Hi John,
Here is my latest post on Frederick Townes WordPress support page. He had a “simple” solution that made a great difference!
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/large-memory-usage-and-internal-server-errors?replies=4#post-2233593
Hope this helps someone!
Regards,
Andre
cool! i should add memory updates to this post. thanks andre! i have 500mb…
And for those how may wonder and don’t have time to jump to the post and search for the info, here is what Frederick suggested I do to improve performance after I installed W3TC.
“…for example you could add the following line to the top of .htaccess: php_value memory_limit 72M”
I did and it greatly helped, but I upped the value to 128M and it was better. I even tried 256M, but then I kept getting a 500 Internal Server Error. So 128M it is! (btw, that site is hosted with BlueHost).
Of course, your mileage may vary…
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Andre
thanks andre for the help to our community!
Glad to help! We all need each other… :O)
for serious!
Cool Article. But I want t know whether this is better than W3 Total Cache
i wrote a review of w3 total… and i mentioned that probably wp super is better for shared environments (in general).
Hi John,
BTW, I installed SuperCache due to W3TC being a bit overkill for my abilities and needs. However, after enabling and going through the settings, when I View Page Source on my site, I get this at the bottom of the pages:
Not sure why it’s not caching when in fact it’s enabled… Any idea?
Regards,
Andre
are you logged in when you see it?
Hi John,
Should I install WP Super Cache and WP Minify together or just W3 Total Cache? Which would be better?
what is your server/hosting setup?
I would so love to use WP Supercache but the last time I tried installing it, I broke my site. Luckily I backed up right before so I was able to recover.
I think I’m too green for this yet.
Awesome post though bud
sure thing. did you try it again?
Dude I’m afraid to.
I would seriously pay someone to set it up for me.
do you feel like you need it right now?
That’s a good question. I’ve been averaging around 100 visitors per day for the past few weeks and I have 21 plugins (9 of which are Tentblogger plugins).
I usually put a light-weight .jpg in each post, and haven’t done a lot with video, although I do embed from YouTube/Vimeo frequently.
I guess my content isn’t all that “heavy”, but with 21 plugins, my “back-end” probably is right? I’ve already eliminated several plugins that weren’t necessary but the rest I consider important.
I don’t know if I’m on shared hosting or not though. My host is Omnis (cloud Linux package)
I guess the honest answer is no, but for page load purposes alone, I think it might be time.
Thoughts?
keep it!
I finally configured WP Super Cache properly, and I’m also using CloudFlare’s free plan, and my site is straight ballin’
I did a speed check on http://www.blamestella.com
Thanks for your info and help as always dude!
Update: WP Super Cache was somehow messing up my RSS feed, so I have since disabled it until I figure out why.
Have you heard of any issues/resolutions to this problem?
Later bud
hmm. shouldn’t mess anything up. did you clear the cache?
Yeah, I tried everything. I “pinged” my feed through Feedburner, and also did a “Re-Sync” which didn’t work either, but the second I disabled WPSuperCache, I re-pinged my feed, and magically the 2 posts that weren’t showing up, appeared immidiately.
Weirdy
Do you mean clearing the cache from within the plugin? (clearing the plugins cache), or clearing my browsers cache?
Thanks buddy
both.
After many attempts and dramatic failures to install W3 Total Cache,I decided to install Super Cache.
It went very easily and now at least I have a styable cache system
I shall stay away from total cache and all the pains it caused.It actually was not easy to uninstall either
Great tutorial and thanks
Greg
sure thing greg!
Hey John
I tried W3 Total cache for one hour and found that it causes an overhead to me so uninstalled it and installed super cache. However, when I scroll down to the bottom of the “Advanced” tab, I get this warning:
Warning! /home/*****/public_html/ is writable. Please make it readonly after your page is generated as this is a security risk.
So, what do you think is the problem?
well, the writeable thing you can fix. it would be interesting to see your overall config.
Both your post and the plugin are fantastic!
With your config recommendations, our homepage loading time has gone from an average of 8 seconds to less than 2.
Many thanks for your great posts, John!
congrats! this is news that I love to hear!
thanks to your share, now my blog is very fast with wp super cache
awesome!
Thanx for this wonderful piece of information…
sure thing bro!
I’m having a strange problem that I don’t know how to fix:
I’m using the WordPress 2011 Theme on one of my blogs.
After I installed Wp Super Cache and activated it, when I return to the “Installed Plugins” page it shows up as a blank page — I can’t see anything.
The site still loads just fine but I can’t seem to access the plugins page. What’s going on and how do I fix it?
My other blog uses a different theme and it’s just fine. Great plugin!
I’m having a strange problem that I don’t know how to fix:
I’m using the WordPress 2011 Theme on one of my blogs.
After I installed Wp Super Cache and activated it, when I return to the “Installed Plugins” page it shows up as a blank page — I can’t see anything.
This is what my .htaccess file looks like:
#BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# END WordPress
The site still loads just fine but I can’t seem to access the plugins page. What’s going on and how do I fix it?
My other blog uses a different theme and it’s just fine. Great plugin!
hmm. seems to be some permission issues.. or refreshing. you have the newest version? check their help forums… they are pretty good.
Now I have this in my .htaccess as well as the mod_rewite script. Should I remove this piece and keep the mod-rewrite rules or does it not matter do you think?
Hello,
a very well written article, really very helpful to me.
Thank you.
i switched to WP Super Cache From W3TC
good for you!
Hi John,
Thanks for the detailed article. I installed WP Super Cache and and the ‘Cache Tester’ give an OK. But I don’t see any difference between Online Page Speed (by Google) before and after installing the plugin. Does it indicate anything?
give it a bit.
I’ve just been pretty much ordered by my Host to install this plugin because of the MySQL CPU usage my site is running at.
Hopefully this article will help me out. This is new territory for me and have no clue what half of it means.
eww. that stinks that you should be required…
Yeah it is a bit but I suppose I could do with it anyway being as I have so much dynamic content.
Unfortunately though, I can not use WP Super Cache along with WP Minify to it’s fullest potential on my site because of the .js codes built into my theme. I can not compress the theme anymore otherwise the .js codes will not work so my page speed will have to stay as it is for now.
hmm. sadness. what about w3 total cache?
I’m unsure really because after reading various articles it seems that W3TC may be too much or not worth it because of the size of the site. I’m trying to get the right balance but it’s such a ballache. I’m spending more time optimising at the moment than I am with content.
I’ve noticed that W3TC uses a bit of power as well and that’s something that I am trying to avoid.
you’re right about that. you need a more custom setup for w3
Muchisimas gracias, desde hace un año y medio uso wp super cache y no lo habia configurado con tanta rapides, un saludo de tu web amiga http://www.faltariamas.com sigue asi con estos tutoriales, magnifico.
awesome! thanks so much!
Thanks for this great tutorial. I’ve a problem: Not working on IE 9 with “compress pages” option. Do you have any solution?
hmm. don’t use ie9?
Many thanks for this post. I found an improvement with the default settings but the advanced set up was worth the effort as the results are amazing.
awesome! well done!
Thanks a lot really helped me as I am new to wordpress…!!
sure thing sheshnath!
I just wanted to say thank you for covering WP SuperCache and helping me get it working for my new blog – http://www.epinionated.co.uk/ – it’s made a huge difference.
Thank You!
awesome! glad it’s working!
great post! does it also take care of compressing files to speed up the loading? do you recommend to add some other plugin for that? (gzip?) Thanks a bunch for writing so good content!
you can if you’d like. i use w3 total cache now: http://tentblogger.com/w3-total-cache
This was SO helpful! Thanks for taking the time! I THINK it worked.
sweet! awesome!
In looking into this plugin further I have come across this on WordPress. http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions
Particularly in changing the permissions.
The dangers of 777:
“This provides an avenue for someone to gain access to your files by hijacking basically any process on your server, this also includes any other users on your machine. So you should think carefully about modifying permissions on your machine. I’ve never come across anything that needed more than 767, so when you see 777 ask why its necessary.”
Furthermore,
“The worst that can happen as a result of using 777 permissions on a folder or even a file, is that if a malicious cracker or entity is able to upload a devious file or modify a current file to execute code, they will have complete control over your blog, including having your database information and password.”
So the outcome would be get a work around, as it states further down; “Contact the Plugin author or your server support and request a workaround.”
So I ask…to your knowledge, or any body elses’, is this really necessary to change the permissions?
Or am I looking into this too much?
Would love the features of cacheing, but do not want to compromise on security for my blog http://healthyresultsblog.com
Is there other security measures known off that can prevent what was stated on WP?
Opinions appreciated…
you may have to do this for a second to get access to the .htaccess. i then tell you to revert. did you read that?
John,
Thank you so much for this instructional post! I have two questions – I have installed this plugin and it works without error and I am able to see the following at the bottom of my code:
However, I have ran the GTmetrix and Google Page Speed tests and both state that I should enable compression and leverage browser caching. WP Super Cache has only been installed for a couple of hours, but (1) shouldn’t both speed tests recognize that I have satisfied both suggestions with WP Super Cache or am I way off? My index.php page took 8-12 seconds to load before the plugin was installed and configured (per your post instructions) and it is still taking the same amount of time to load with IE and Firefox. (2) How long will it take before I see faster results?
Thanks again,
Clay
have you tried again today?
Hi John,
I ran the GTmetrix and Google Page Speed tests again today (3 days after installing the WP Super Cache plugin) and I’m still showing the same results as before. Any suggestions?
Thanks again!
Clay
2nd update:
I deactivated WP Super Cache and installed WP Total Cache. Results improved dramatically from 68% to 90%. I’m still puzzled as to why the results didn’t improve with WP Super Cache.
Thank you for the instructional posts for each!
Clay
Good day,
I followed your advice and used this process to help me with the installation. I just want to say thank you for that.
May I ask about your availability to possibly make some checks on my site to ensure it is optimised fully please.
i currently don’t have time to do this, unfortunately!
No problem. I looked at your business card page and it stated that you were available so I must have just missed the boat!
Thanks for responding so promptly
sweet! enjoy!
Thanks for the information. I use W3 Total Cache for the sites I have more server control over, but for my sites on shared servers (e.g. GoDaddy), this is a “super” simple plug-in.
yup. agree!
Hi John,
I was just wondering if you’ve heard anything about BackWPup? I have done a little reading and to me it appears like it might be a good free option.
Any opinions?
ps…Chrome wouldn’t allow me to to click into the name or email fields of this reply form. I could click into the URL and tab back up.
oops…sorry John wrong blog post
Hi John,
The pages do not match! Timestamps differ or were not found!
I am stuck here. I tried the three things given there. Still no use. Please help me
gah! screenshot?
Here is the link to the screenshot:
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4773/techartastatus.png
Also, when i change the permissions of .htaccess to 644, in the advanced tab I get the “Cannot update .htaccess” message in a yellow box like:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/616/htaccess.png
But if the .htaccess permission is set to 777, I don’t get any such message. Its normal then.
Please help me regarding this.
Hey got it fixed! anyways thnks!
awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, I just installed this SuperCache plugin. Tested in Page Speed online at google, it went from 80 to 90. Thanks a lot.
whoot! great job joann!
Hi John, I am writing from Malaysia. Actually regarding about Wp Super Cache setting which is The pages do not match! Timestamps differ or were not found! is there any solution or ideas to solve this problem?
I am noob and had tried to figure it out myself, unfortunately I can’t do anything. Hopefully, you can help me. Thanks
hmm. do you have your perms right on your .htaccess?
This is the best caching plugin I have tried and which really made a difference on the loading time of my blog.
It actually works and it’s pretty simple to setup.
This is a great tutorial – many thanks for the post. I tried W3 Total Cache initially but didn’t realise the performance benefits due to the reasons you outlined in another post. The setup steps here made setting up caching a breeze. Cheers.
sure thing man!
I am a newbe to wordpress, i would like to know why, when i make changes to my site some of the things do not apear, i have to delate cache in WP Super Cache Settings before they apear.
Regards