Have you ever wondered why old mobile phones get slower by the time as compared to when you bought it? The reason behind it is, the more apps you keep installing the more cache they will store. Also, these apps keep updating and their requirement eventually surpasses your phone configuration. Same works for your WordPress websites and plugins.
Here, in this article, we have listed some of the best cache plugins to make your WordPress site faster. But before starting on wp clear cache, let’s have a quick look at what cache is and why clearing the cache is important.
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What is Cache?
The plugins you install in your WordPress along with the content which gets published store some values and data as a cache to load your website faster. But as time passes, these caches get bigger in size and will eventually slow down your website. It will be the best time for you to clear down your cache.
Modern Web Browsers also store pages as a cache to preload the page on demand. So, sometimes browsers do not reflect the changes in the webpage. Clearing the cache will load the updated version of the page.
In short, Cache is a memory to store data for future references to save time. When the requested data is found, its called a cache hit, while the data cannot be found, its called a cache miss.
There are primarily two types of caching protocols used in WordPress:
1. Client-Side caching
2. Server-Side caching
Client-Side caching
Typically, each time a page is downloaded for a user to interact on its browser, browser stores the static information such as Images, CSS and JavaScript files. Next time, whenever that page loads again browser doesn’t re-download them again. This saves time and loads page faster from the client-side. Modern websites allow this and almost every modern web browsers support this technique.
Server-Side caching
Caching process which happens at the server-end is known as Server-Side caching. There are various caching protocols in this category:
1. Paging Caching
2. Database Caching
3. Object-based Caching
4. Opcode Caching
Paging Cache
In Paging Cache, the dynamically generated HTML pages are stored in the local storage of the user, and when a request is made, it executes on that locally stored page. It saves time of PHP code, and MYSQL database queries execution.
Database Caching
In Database Caching, until the database is not updated, it stores the values in the local storage. This caching is called Database Caching. Whenever a database request comes, if the database was unaltered from the time the values were stored, it shows the result from the local file.
Object-based Caching
WordPress has an internal caching system that includes several subsystems (i.e. the Caching API, Object Cache, and Transient API). The WordPress core allows plugins to control this caching system to reduce the number of database calls.
Opcode Caching
Opcode Caching is similar to Database Caching. In this type of Caching, the already compiled PHP code is stored locally in the user’s system. Every website needs to execute a server-side language, such as PHP, to process queries and interact with the database.
Why Clearing the Cache is Important?
Privacy Risk
The cache stores your private information too, such as Login Credentials, Residential Address, Mobile Numbers etc., the next user using the same computer can get access to your sensitive and private information.
Reduced Conversion Rates
Have you ever encountered a slow website while searching for a query on Google? What did you do, you skipped that website because there are tons of other websites to get you what you want. The same goes for your website.
Slow Loading Pages can reduce your customers and sales. According to a survey, even one second of faster loading can bring great profit for your website in terms of either revenue, visitors, sales or subscribers.
Google Rankings
Google Search Engine also take an account of your page loading speed and rank your website other than the SEO configured on your website. Why does anybody doesn’t want to top the list of search rankings for their website?
Search Rankings really help to boost up your visitors, customers, product promotions or sharing of your content.
Clear Your Cache
A Cache Plugin for WordPress makes your website faster and efficient. It also helps to increase your conversion rates and improve the site’s SEO. These plugins install in no time and decrease your website’s loading time.
With these plugins, you can clear your cache on a daily basis, or simply schedule it. We have given a basic example of how to set up a Cache Plugin on WordPress.
In the example, we used “WP Fastest Cache”
Step 1:
Go to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Step 2:
Go to Plugins > Add New
Step 3:
Search for “Cache Plugins” and select the one you like, click on “Install Now” and then “Activate”.
There should be a new tab on your dashboard named after your chosen plugin.
Step 4:
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- In WP Fastest Cache, there are many toggling options in the Settings Tab.
Here you can Enable Caching System, Delete caches before loading the pages, Minify HTML pages, Minify pages scripts, clears the cache after a New Post or Update Post, Lazy Loading, Google Fonts compressions and much more. - In the Image Optimization Tab, it is a type of tool which uploads every image of your web page and compresses them to speed up your website. This option is only included in the Premium version of this plugin.Best WordPress Plugins for Image Optimization
- In WP Fastest Cache, there are many toggling options in the Settings Tab.
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- In the Exclude Tab, you can exclude those plugins or pages where you don’t want to clear the cache automatically.
Here you can also add a rule for particular CSS and JS files along with Cookies of the pages which you don’t want to clear out. - In CDN Tab, you can also request contents from other service providers which have really fast and reliable servers.
WP Fastest Cache offers mainly three Content Delivery Network Service namely, StackPath, Photon, and Cloudflare. Furthermore also provides you to use any custom provider.
- In the Exclude Tab, you can exclude those plugins or pages where you don’t want to clear the cache automatically.
Everything you need to know about CDN
- In DB Tab, you can even clean out your database cache. It is only available in the Premium version of the plugin.
Step 5:
Click on your Plugin and find “Delete Cache”, “Clear Cache” or “Purge Cache” option and select it. (“Delete Cache”, in my case).
P.S. This was the free version of the plugin, you can get the premium version which offers more options for this plugin
List of Top Cache Plugins
There is a plethora of Cache Plugins which offers the same functionality as the one stated above. Choose the best one which suits you from the list below:
W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is a well-known, widely used cache plugin that improves the user experience, keeps track of each cache, optimizes page performance, easy to use and efficient. This plugin updates every few months and it is used by many big companies such as MakeUseOf and Mashable.
Features:
- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) support
- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) support
- Non-blocking JavaScript embedding
- Optimization Score Improvements
WP Super Cache
This plugin alone has 2+ million Active Installations, hence it is widely popular and is used by many of the hosting servers and websites. This plugin generates static HTML pages of each page you open dynamically on your website. And opens that page instead of dynamic pages.
Features:
- Simple Caching
- Compress Pages
- Cache Rebuild
- CDN Support
- Custom Caching
Autoptimize
Autoptimize has a vast majority of options in which one of those is Clearing Cache. With this plugin, you can aggregate or minify the cache scripts and styles, alter page styles and scripts, optimize Google Fonts and much more. There are a variety of ways where you can improve your site’s performance with this plugin.
Features:
- Inject CSS in the page header
- Inject in-line CSS
- Minify Page Scripts and Styles
- Optimize Lazy Load Images
Breeze – WordPress Cache Plugin
Breeze is a free, simple and very user-friendly caching plugin. It is a powerful plugin developed by CloudWays Team which is compatible with WordPress, WooCommerce and WordPress Multisite. It optimizes your site’s performance, simplicity, and convenience among users. Also, they use SSDs to boost up your page’s load time for your dynamic website.
Features:
- Built-in Advanced Cache
- Redis Support
- Free Magento Full Page Cache
- 24/7/365 Live Chat Support
- Simple and Easy Experience
WP-Optimize – Clean, Compress, Cache
WP-Optimize makes your site faster and efficient. It is an All-In-One Plugin that cleans your database, compresses your images and caches your site. This plugin gives users the ability to preview, select and remove data and records available for optimization from the database that also has a Seamless Graphical User Interface.
Features:
- Mobile-Friendly
- Incredibly Simple
- Database Cleaning
- Compresses Every Image Extensions
- Multisite Support
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, you guys finally got to know how important the performance of your site is and how it affects your site’s audience.
Improving the site’s performance, SEO, good rankings and digital awareness only depend upon the site’s owner or developer. Keeping the audience happy is a later topic but initially, it is vital to draw the audience’s attention as much as possible.
