WP Rocket : caching extension for WordPress
The speed of a web platform is an important criterion for web users and search engines. Indeed, there is nothing more annoying for a user than a website whose pages take time to load. This has a disastrous effect on the website’s performance.
However, website owners can feel relieved. There are actually ways to improve the loading speed of website pages. These are specific plugins including WP rocket. Available only on WordPress, this plugin is a powerful tool to improve the performance of your websites.
Presentation of WP Rocket
WP Rocket is more than 170 000 satisfied customers worldwide. Proposed by the French startup WP media, this plugin has already been used to optimize more than 211 000 websites built with WordPress.
WP rocket, a premium plugin whose function is to accelerate the loading of your websites’ pages. It is easy to use and very simple to configure.
A must-have caching plugin for WordPress
WP rocket is indeed a cache plugin. The function of the cache is to keep the already loaded pages of the websites in memory. This allows it to offer these pages faster to users without the need to generate them every time.
The WP Rocket extension acts on two types of caches in particular:
- First, the plugin acts on the browser cache. Through directives, the browser caches CSS and JavaScript files, images and any other static resources of WordPress websites.
- Secondly, the WP Rocket plugin acts on the server cache. A static HTML page is created thanks to the plugin. As a result, any PHP processing is avoided.
All these operations result in an improvement of the loading time of a website. The WP rocket extension is not limited to these features. It goes far beyond that.
Plugin that optimizes the performance of your site
The WP rocket extension incorporates many tools that help boost the performance of your WordPress websites. These include CSS and JavaScript file chaining, minification of your HTML code. The plugin also promotes delayed loading of JavaScript and image files, etc.
Why is site performance important?
To optimize the performance of your WordPress site, the use of a caching plugin becomes essential. There are several reasons for this.
The user experience suffers seriously when a website is slow. It is generally noticed that one out of two users leave a site when its pages take more than three seconds to load.
Moreover, on e-commerce sites, users abandon the shopping cart because of the slow loading of the site. It should also be noted that search engines (Google, Bing…) are fond of sites with a fast page load. A bad loading is detrimental to your SEO and Google could penalize it.
Indeed, a fast charging page makes it easy for search engines to index your site. They are able to explore and retrieve more data on more pages of the site.
How to install WP Rocket on WordPress ?
Before installing the WP rocket extension, you need to purchase it first. Since it is a premium extension, it is not available on the WordPress directory. Therefore, you will have to go to the extension’s website to purchase it.
After purchasing the extension:
Step 1: Download it. You will see a button on your dashboard called DOWNLOAD WP rocket. Click on it to download the extension. The files for the installation are compressed. You will get a zip document at the end of the download.
Step 2: Go to the administration of your WordPress site. Go to the EXTENSIONS or PLUGINS menu and click on ADD and then on DOWNLOAD AN EXTENSION.
Step 3: Browse your storage and select the zip document you uploaded to the WP rocket site. Then install it.
Step 4: Now proceed to activate the extension. Once installed, the plugin will be found with the other plugins in the EXTENSIONS menu of WordPress. Search for it and enable it.
WP Rocket features
The reason why WP Rocket is so popular is because it has practical, simple and efficient features. By default, some are activated as soon as the plugin is activated. It must be said that these features are more than enough to optimize the performance of a website.
These options are :
- Header management to reduce the number of requests and optimize files for the browser cache;
- optimization of all Google Font files;
- caching of all pages;
- GZIP compression which allows to reduce bandwidth.
As well as these features not being displayed on the WP rocket dashboard, some settings are also enabled by default.
Apart from these options, WP rocket offers more tools to increase the performance of your websites.
Features related to the cache
In its cache tab, WP rocket offers 3 options. First, there is the mobile cache. This option promotes the activation of caching for page loading on mobile. Secondly, the plugin offers the user cache.
Enabling this option enables caching for users administering your WordPress site with you. If you don’t have any users, it will not be of much use to you.
The last option is the cache cleanup time. By default, the delay is 10 hours. This means that the files in the cache will be deleted every 10 hours. If your web platform is not updated regularly, this delay can be increased.
Optimization of files
In this section, the features are divided into 2 groups. There are CSS and JavaScript file optimization.
For CSS optimization, WP rocket presents the following options.
Minify CSS files
This option helps to reduce the size of your site’s CSS code. In order for a human to read his CSS file, the developer adds spaces, line breaks, etc. But for a computer, all these characters are useless. The minify CSS files option makes the code lighter by removing these characters.
Combine files and optimize CSS loading
This option is reserved for websites that use the http/2 protocol. This is a protocol that improves security as well as the speed of navigation. This option therefore improves the UX.
As for the second option, its role is to remove blocking CSS. This reduces the loading time.
Removed unused CSS
This option makes your page lighter. By removing unused CSS, it reduces HTTP requests.
The features in the JavaScript file optimization section do the same things as the CSS optimization ones. The only difference is that the optimization tasks are applied to JavaScript files.
However, let’s note the presence of a particular option. This is the DELAY JAVASCRIPT EXECUTION function. It consists in delaying the loading of JavaScript files until the moment when an interaction with the user is realized.
Media options
Here you have 4 parameters.
- The lazyload allows you to load the elements of your pages only when they appear on the screen during the scroll.
- The image dimensions option adds the missing height and width attributes to the images.
As a result, layout changes are avoided. UX is therefore improved.
- The embed code tag is used to integrate multimedia content into a web page. Thanks to its embeds option, the WP rocket plugin disables article embeds. This has the effect of avoiding the generation of additional HTTP requests.
- The last option in this section is Webp compatibility. This is a setting that allows you to create a separate cache file to serve your images in Webp format.
Preloading options
In order to improve the performance of your website, the WP rocket extension offers some interesting options. There are:
- the cache pre-loading which allows you to generate the cache starting with the different links located on your homepage;
- link pre-loading which allows to download in the background the HTML code of a page when the user touches its link for at least 100 ms;
- pre-loading of DNS requests, which allows you to resolve DNS requests before your external resources are called;
- preloading of fonts which promotes the loading of your layout fonts in advance.
Database cleanup
The database stores the parameters of your templates, plugins, pages, articles, etc. It contains all your content.
Over time and over storage it will eventually become heavy and slow down your website. To keep excellent performance, a cleanup is a must.
The WP rocket wordpress plugin has several settings for this purpose.
Content cleaning
This option allows the deletion of drafts and revisions that the database contains. The revision system allows you to find an old version of your content (layout, article, etc.). But they end up weighing a lot in the database.
The same is true for comments. With the comment cleanup option, they go to the trash.
Cleaning transients and cleaning the database
The transients allow you to keep data in cache for a while.
To unclog the database, the plugin allows to delete the transients. Moreover, by activating the database cleaning option, the extension will optimize all the tables in the database.
Automatic cleaning
The extension supports automatic cleaning of the database. You can choose daily, weekly or monthly cleaning according to your needs.
The CDN
To improve the display speed of your website pages, you can use a CDN. It is indeed a content distribution network.
This service allows the storage of files on many servers around the world. The display improves with a CDN, because when a user tries to display a site that uses a CDN, it sends the files closest to him.
The plugin offers to enable this feature. The ease of use of Rocket CDN is disconcerting. You won’t have to configure any settings. However, Rocket CDN is a paid feature.
Does WP Rocket improve site performance?
When you compare the performance of a site when WP Rocket is activated and when it is not, the observation is clear. With the extension activated, the site loading time improves by 50% on average. The number of requests decreases, as well as the weight of the page.
If you still doubt the capabilities of WP Rocket, you should know that it greatly improves the performance of your website. However, it should be noted that the extension cannot constantly solve everything.
If you want to keep your site performing well, you’ll have to put in the effort and adopt good practices like:
- using SEO optimized templates;
- avoiding the use of too many plugins;
- use images that are not too heavy;
- use webp format for images;
- choose a good web host.
WP Rocket prices
First of all, note that WP Rocket does not have a free version. To try it, you will have to subscribe to one of the offers. For this purpose, there are three packages.
The first package, called Single, is available for $49. It allows you to enjoy the performance of the plugin on a single site.
The second package called Plus costs $99 for a use of the extension on 3 sites. As for the last offer (Infinite), it can be purchased for $249. It offers the use of WP Rocket on an unlimited number of sites.
Each package gives you the right to one year of updates and support. You also benefit from a 14 days money back guarantee. For renewal, WP Rocket offers a 50% cheaper rate if you renew within 30 days before your package expires.
Conclusion
WP rocket is an essential plugin if you really want to increase the performance of your website. See for yourself its efficiency by discovering its strong and weak points.
The strong points
The WP rocket plugin has a very large number of assets.
It is much more than a simple cache plugin
The extension is a combination of several options including:
- caching ;
- database optimization
- CDN ;
- CSS and JavaScript minification, etc.
All these features together improve the performance of a site. This plugin is an all-in-one.
Simple and easy to use
With this extension, there is no need to deal with complex settings. The configuration remains minimal and the results can be felt immediately.
Responsive customer support
The support is of course available in French. The agents bring you support in all your concerns.
An extension accessible to everyone
Beginners, intermediates or experienced users can use it. Moreover, even when you have no coding skills, the plugin is accessible to you.
Risk of incompatibility reduced to zero
All the proposed functionalities are available in the same extension. Therefore, there can be no incompatibility problems. Moreover, WP Rocket has a clean code that respects all the standards of the WordPress CMS.
Frequent updates
First of all, it should be noted that this extension works immediately after activation. Secondly, it is updated regularly.
Weaknesses
Although it is very interesting, the plugin still has some negative points.
No free option
Most of the extensions competing with WP Rocket have free versions. This is not the case with WP Rocket. This remains a small drawback.
Some bonus options are too technical
The technical level of some features is quite high. As a result, beginners may find it difficult to understand and use them.
What are the alternatives to WP Rocket ?
Several extensions compete with WP Rocket and many of them are free.
W3 total cache
This site optimization and caching plugin is one of the most widely used WordPress extensions. Unlike other extensions that offer simple features, this plugin gives the user complete control.
WP Super cache
This is one of the free caching extensions available in the WordPress directory. It can be installed and activated easily. Its configuration is also simple and it offers several site optimization features like CDN, mobile device support, etc.
Apart from these alternatives, you also have extensions like Comet Cache and Hyper Cache. These extensions are all free.
