Note: Presidents’ Day festivities delayed Plugin Monday. We hope you can make-do with this rare Tuesday edition of our weekly WordPress plugin feature.
In the spirit of the recent Daytona 500, this week we’ll be covering a plugin that will make your site speedier, WP Super Cache.
Unlike other plugins that put more load on your server’s process and slow down your site’s load time, WP Super Cache make your site faster by creating static HTML files from the PHP scripts that run WordPress. Those HTML files will be served in place of your dynamic WordPress pages, saving your server an incredible amount of strain.
This plugin is especially useful for WordPress users running WP on underpowered servers or users experiencing heavy traffic flow. This means that running WP Super Cache can save you cash by allowing you run WordPress on an inexpensive server without feeling all the lag that can often come with cheaper hosting services.
WP Super Cache is cleverly designed so as not to interfere with the functionality of your site in any way. Dynamic pages will still be served to users who are logged into your site, users who have left a comment (so they can see them), and users who are viewing a password-protected post or page, so there’s no need to worry about WP Super Cache affecting the experience of your users. If anything, user experience will be improved dramatically as your site will be faster and more responsive.
If you decide to move forward with installing WP Super Cache, it is important to note that installation involves some small edits to your site’s wp-config.php file as well as the .htaccess file. These edits aren’t very extensive, but errors in the code of these files can cause your site to have serious errors or be disabled entirely, so be sure to make backups of these files before you begin the installation process.
To Install the plugin, follow the detailed instructions on the plugin’s page at wordpress.org. Once you have the basics of the plugin up and running, I’d recommend leaving all the defaults in place with the exception of enabling Super Cache Compression. Though this compression feature can cause problems with some server setups, chances are that your server will deal with this option just fine and compression will make your site just that much faster.
No matter how you configure WP Super Cache, it’s a good idea to browse through several pages on your site, make a few test comments, and visit any password protected pages in order to test the caching functionality. Be sure to do this both while logged into your site and while logged out.
After your installation is complete, get to work promoting your site on Digg, as you’ll be able to absorb the traffic of a Digg front page link without a problem.
If you have any questions about installing WP Super Cache, please leave a comment or send an email to info@readymadeweb.com and we’ll get back to you and the rest of our readers with an answer.
Cord is the director of new media at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has been a web developer for over a decade, working with non-profits to rein in their web development costs and grow their online audiences through simple best practices.
