Resource Optimization
Updated last week
WordPress is a highly versatile tool, but the vast number of available plugins and themes often cause our site to consume more resources than it should.
To this end, we suggest taking the following actions as part of the eternally recommended practices, so we can ensure that our website remains secure and well optimized.
Of interest: if we would 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 allows the 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 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 without exception—is to keep our platform 100% up to date always (specific cases include apps such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, etc.).
This becomes more difficult when the plugin or theme being used is no longer maintained by its developers; in these cases, we should consider plugin or theme alternatives that meet our design and functionality requirements.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
Each visit involves processing many MySQL queries to retrieve all the content published by our site in each section. In other words, this means hundreds of simultaneous queries in most cases (we can see evidence of this in our account’s usage details—we suggest UsageDD).
The cache plugin is a program that takes a “snapshot” of the results of all queries 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 Site Health report
Several versions ago, WordPress introduced a Site Health report, which continues to improve to help us get an overview of everything happening “under the hood.”
It is accessible from the Tools -> Site Health menu. More details about this native tool can be found in our blog article, Site Health in WordPress.