Resource Optimization
Updated last week
WordPress is a highly versatile tool, and the immense number of available plugins and themes often causes our site to consume more resources than it should.
To this end, we suggest taking the following actions as part of the eternal best practices, so we can ensure that our website remains secure and well optimized.
Worth noting: if we prefer Duplika to handle 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 required the PHP engine to check the aforementioned file in order to execute a process.
Thanks to Cloudlinux, Duplika provides a native PHP selector, which configures the version from cPanel without the need to modify files on our website.
Using PHP 8.3 or higher is recommended.
Next, it is best to remove any manual PHP settings in .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 to the letter—is to keep our platform 100% up to date always (specific cases include apps such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, etc.).
This becomes complicated when the plugin or theme being used is no longer maintained by its developers; in these cases, we should consider plugin or theme alternatives that meet our design and functionality requirements.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
Every 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 usage details—we suggest UsageDD).
A 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 the vast majority of queries to the server). These components can be configured to suit our preferences and offer both simple, automated options and fine-tuning 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 Site 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 can be accessed from the Tools -> Site Health menu.