Resource Optimization
Updated last month
WordPress is a highly versatile tool, but the vast number of available plugins and themes often causes our site to consume more resources than it should.
To that end, we suggest taking the following actions as part of the long-standing recommended practices, so we can ensure that our website remains secure and well optimized.
Of interest: if we would prefer Duplika to take care of every detail and professionally optimize our site as well, let’s consider the Managed WordPress service.
PHP Settings
Previously, cPanel allowed PHP to be configured using variables in our account’s .htaccess file. This provided some flexibility, but it also forced the PHP engine to check the aforementioned file in order to execute a process.
Thanks to CloudLinux, Duplika offers a native PHP selector, which allows the PHP version to be configured from cPanel without modifying files on our website.
Using PHP 8.3 or higher is recommended.
Next, it is best to remove any manual PHP settings from .htaccess (if present) and delete any php.ini or user.ini files.
Keep everything up to date
The golden rule—the first security measure we must follow rigorously—is to keep our platform 100% up to date at all times (including specific apps such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, etc.).
This becomes difficult when the plugin or theme being used is no longer maintained by its developers. In these cases, we should consider alternative plugins or themes that meet our design and functionality requirements.
WordPress, plugins, and themes must be 100% up to date to prevent performance issues and, above all, security problems.
Cache Plugin
Each visit involves processing many MySQL queries to retrieve all the content published by our site in each section. In other words, there are hundreds of simultaneous queries in most cases (we can see this in our account’s consumption details—we suggest UsageDD).
The cache plugin is a program that takes a "snapshot" of the results of all queries in order to provide a static version of the content, bypassing most of the queries to the server. These components can be configured to suit our preferences and offer both easy, automatic options and fine-tuned settings for advanced webmasters.
Our servers have LiteSpeed Web Server installed, the software that enables LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress, one of the best cache and optimization plugins in the world.
Review the Health Report
WordPress introduced a site health report several versions ago, and it has continued to improve to help us get an overview of everything happening "under the hood."
It is accessible from the Tools -> Site Health menu. You can find more details about this native tool in our blog article, Site Health in WordPress.