All Things WordPress Discussions

vyas · February 2021

Db size is anecdotal. I saw a 20 odd mb drop once I moved to cdn could also be a coincidence. Cdn versus subdomain is also a function of where visitors are from

bikegremlin · February 2021

@vyas said:
Db size is anecdotal. I saw a 20 odd mb drop once I moved to cdn could also be a coincidence. Cdn versus subdomain is also a function of where visitors are from

Yes - a very good point.
For Cloudflare in particular:
i've measured average page load times to drop, but the page load times for visitors located near the hosting server have slightly increased.
Well, unless a website is configured to serve pages too from the CF cache - in that case it's faster from any location, since CF cache serves the complete pages, they aren't created from the shared hosting server.

Fritz · February 2021

@bikegremlin said:

@Ympker said:

@vyas said:
I use Brizy (rather plan to use it now) and have elementor essential addons. Was considering mobirose after the blog series on page builders. Had/have Visualmodo plans that use WP Bakery.

At the end of the day, choose what works best for you and the project. I have started using as barebones a theme/ set of features as I can- less maintenance, more focus on content

I agree with you. Mobirise has served me well btw > @Fritz said:

@Ympker said:

@Fritz said:
At the moment I don't have any problem with Google Analytics as I don't use Gtag manager.

As I said earlier, using Cloudflare to cache everything adds up to 0.8ms initial load time and that's really sucks.

The second matter is about wp-content, does anyone know how to properly move whole wp-content to subdomain? So I can server css and js with no cookies subdomain.

I thought this was a good write-up about serving images/media from subdomain: https://www.blogbeginner.com/serve-images-from-a-subdomain/

Now I know the cause of this problem.

Cloudflare does not cache HTML, CSS and JS, after each request, it will fetch from the origin first.

This will cause an extra load time.

I guess the solution is to make a page rules in Cloudflare to cache everything not only images.

Then another problem will come, cached pages that consist of dynamic information (like comment page, or even GA, will have invalid information).

You are on the righ track, I think. However, I have also often read that full-site cache with CF is discouraged from as it slows down site as opposed to selective. FWIW not using any CDN in my site rn.

Long post. Probably pointless - but some info might be helpful, or interesting.

Example 1
This one is served through CF - so practically all the pages are cached there. GTmetrix report, for noting any optimization errors (well, Images should be better optimized, but that's a long story):

Page 1 - GTmetrix report

Page 2 GT metrix report

Page 3 - NO CACHING (all caches bypassed, both on the hosting server, and CF)

Page 4 - UNOPTIMIZED images - no matter how they are cached, or where they are served from, the most important thing, making the size and compression fit what is shown on the screen is missing here! And that makes the biggest difference.

Example 2
This is my website, where **CF caches images and some static stuff, but not all ** ('cause it takes money, or a particular free plugin to enable that, without visitors seeing cached version of admin pages and vice-versa).

With google ads (they cripple performance):

Page 1 GT metrix

Page 2 GT metrix

Example 2b:
Same site, with Ad-Block enabled (no Google AdSense ads):

Page 1 - no AdSense

Page 2 - no AdSense

Example 3:
And, here's a static HTML website, cached with CF:

Page 1 GTmetrix

Page 2 GTmetrix

Pointless drivel:
- All of these are hosted on the same server, and tested from the same location, that is near the server.

A good test and comparison when it comes to Cloudflare, would be to compare by testing from a distant location - and judging whether CF helps websites who use it, compared to those who don't.

In my experience, on the whole, CF still does more good than harm (at least for my uses).

Finally, more on topic:

Hosting images on a separate (sub)domain adds a bit more complication, hassle - in terms of adding, removing and updating content.
However, in terms of performance, I think it's a good idea.

Don't know if WP can be configured to just link to your chosen image-server, not having to be re-directed with .htaccess rules or similar.

The bottom line (for me at least): compared to other optimization related stuff, off-loading images never seamed like a very important thing.
Then again - not selling anything, so cutting the page load time from 2.5 to 1.9 seconds doesn't really have any "conversion" to affect.

My thoughts on your tests :

On your first site, only a few images on the site with few text, whether you are using Cloudflare or not maybe not give much differences. It is more likely a gallery maybe?

So, an unoptimized picture will give big difference (size and page load time).

Your second example is a blog, with simple and clean layout.
Not much images, I am agree that Cloudflare will not give much difference either, but at least it does more good than harm.
Site 3, no comment because of simple HTML.

Maybe, I should say this way, a magazine like site, with lots of dynamic content (facebook updates, instagram updates, comment System, rating system), and optimized images (aggressive compression) WordPress with a cache system (not memory cache like Redis, opcache).

Will Cloudflare still do more good than harms as CF will basically cache some extension (jpg,png,webp, etc), but not HTML by default.

I'm on Free Plan

bikegremlin · February 2021

@Fritz said:

@bikegremlin said:

@Ympker said:

@vyas said:
I use Brizy (rather plan to use it now) and have elementor essential addons. Was considering mobirose after the blog series on page builders. Had/have Visualmodo plans that use WP Bakery.

At the end of the day, choose what works best for you and the project. I have started using as barebones a theme/ set of features as I can- less maintenance, more focus on content

I agree with you. Mobirise has served me well btw > @Fritz said:

@Ympker said:

@Fritz said:
At the moment I don't have any problem with Google Analytics as I don't use Gtag manager.

As I said earlier, using Cloudflare to cache everything adds up to 0.8ms initial load time and that's really sucks.

The second matter is about wp-content, does anyone know how to properly move whole wp-content to subdomain? So I can server css and js with no cookies subdomain.

I thought this was a good write-up about serving images/media from subdomain: https://www.blogbeginner.com/serve-images-from-a-subdomain/

Now I know the cause of this problem.

Cloudflare does not cache HTML, CSS and JS, after each request, it will fetch from the origin first.

This will cause an extra load time.

I guess the solution is to make a page rules in Cloudflare to cache everything not only images.

Then another problem will come, cached pages that consist of dynamic information (like comment page, or even GA, will have invalid information).

You are on the righ track, I think. However, I have also often read that full-site cache with CF is discouraged from as it slows down site as opposed to selective. FWIW not using any CDN in my site rn.

Long post. Probably pointless - but some info might be helpful, or interesting.

Example 1
This one is served through CF - so practically all the pages are cached there. GTmetrix report, for noting any optimization errors (well, Images should be better optimized, but that's a long story):

Page 1 - GTmetrix report

Page 2 GT metrix report

Page 3 - NO CACHING (all caches bypassed, both on the hosting server, and CF)

Page 4 - UNOPTIMIZED images - no matter how they are cached, or where they are served from, the most important thing, making the size and compression fit what is shown on the screen is missing here! And that makes the biggest difference.

Example 2
This is my website, where **CF caches images and some static stuff, but not all ** ('cause it takes money, or a particular free plugin to enable that, without visitors seeing cached version of admin pages and vice-versa).

With google ads (they cripple performance):

Page 1 GT metrix

Page 2 GT metrix

Example 2b:
Same site, with Ad-Block enabled (no Google AdSense ads):

Page 1 - no AdSense

Page 2 - no AdSense

Example 3:
And, here's a static HTML website, cached with CF:

Page 1 GTmetrix

Page 2 GTmetrix

Pointless drivel:
- All of these are hosted on the same server, and tested from the same location, that is near the server.

A good test and comparison when it comes to Cloudflare, would be to compare by testing from a distant location - and judging whether CF helps websites who use it, compared to those who don't.

In my experience, on the whole, CF still does more good than harm (at least for my uses).

Finally, more on topic:

Hosting images on a separate (sub)domain adds a bit more complication, hassle - in terms of adding, removing and updating content.
However, in terms of performance, I think it's a good idea.

Don't know if WP can be configured to just link to your chosen image-server, not having to be re-directed with .htaccess rules or similar.

The bottom line (for me at least): compared to other optimization related stuff, off-loading images never seamed like a very important thing.
Then again - not selling anything, so cutting the page load time from 2.5 to 1.9 seconds doesn't really have any "conversion" to affect.

My thoughts on your tests :

On your first site, only a few images on the site with few text, whether you are using Cloudflare or not maybe not give much differences. It is more likely a gallery maybe?

So, an unoptimized picture will give big difference (size and page load time).

Your second example is a blog, with simple and clean layout.
Not much images, I am agree that Cloudflare will not give much difference either, but at least it does more good than harm.

Site 3, no comment because of simple HTML.

Maybe, I should say this way, a magazine like site, with lots of dynamic content (facebook updates, instagram updates, comment System, rating system), and optimized images (aggressive compression) WordPress with a cache system (not memory cache like Redis, opcache).

Will Cloudflare still do more good than harms as CF will basically cache some extension (jpg,png,webp, etc), but not HTML by default.

I'm on Free Plan

If Google Analytics is to be trusted, CF does help reduce avg. page load time (it also reduces the hosting server load to a degree). Some of my articles have 5 to 10 images (not a huge number, and the images aren't huge, but not just one or two).

That's on top of using redis and LiteSpeed cache.

CF, if configured "properly" can also provide some basic firewall and DDoS protection. Nothing to write home about, but note this comes with no measurable money costs (you do risk privacy with CF), or performance penalties (on average, at least).

bikegremlin · February 2021

Not strictly WP related, but it is PHP - and didn't seem sensible starting a new thread.

I put this PHP code in an index.php file on a shared hosting server:

<?php date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York'); echo date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A'); **print `uptime`; ** ?>

It sued to work fine for a while.
Now, uptime is no longer being displayed, and error log shows that command is being blocked:

_PHP Warning:
shell_exec() has been disabled for security reasons in ..../public_html/index.php on line 4
_

Is this a potential security problem - the "print whatever," or "print uptime;" command?

Ympker · February 2021

@bikegremlin said:
Not strictly WP related, but it is PHP - and didn't seem sensible starting a new thread.

I put this PHP code in an index.php file on a shared hosting server:
<?php > date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York'); > echo date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A'); > **print `uptime`; ** > ?>
It sued to work fine for a while.
Now, uptime is no longer being displayed, and error log shows that command is being blocked:

_PHP Warning:
shell_exec() has been disabled for security reasons in ..../public_html/index.php on line 4
_

Is this a potential security problem - the "print whatever," or "print uptime;" command?

Well, PHP commands can be certainly abused, but I'd reckon the problem here is most likely that most shared hosts block shell_exec sooner than later.

Ympker · February 2021

Blocksy is running a Valentine's discount ( up to 30%) also for their lifetime plans:
https://creativethemes.com/blocksy/

Normally I wouldn't buy such a new theme outright, but I am really considering it as I really like their free version already.

vyas · February 2021

Blocksy is good. What about picostrap?

Ympker · February 2021

@vyas said:
Blocksy is good. What about picostrap?

Just installed it along with LiveCanvas. As a theme I really like how Picostrap is setup. Not too many options, but everything you need imho. Clean and simple. And it is free Used only LiveCanvas Blocks, Picsostrap and built/imported custom Bootstrap Blocks from Pinegrow. Damn! It's been a while I achieved such scores out of the box on a WP install:

Mobile:

Thanks @flips ! I will likely rebuild my own website using LiveCanvas

flips · February 2021

@Ympker said: Thanks @flips ! I will likely rebuild my own website using LiveCanvas

I think you alerted me to the LiveCanvas deal in the first place ... (On HT, maybe)

Ympker · February 2021

@flips said:

@Ympker said: Thanks @flips ! I will likely rebuild my own website using LiveCanvas

I think you alerted me to the LiveCanvas deal in the first place ... (On HT, maybe)

I did, but you pulled the trigger first

flips · February 2021

I liked (and still like) the idea that you can even remove the plugin and the design will still be intact.

Ympker · February 2021

@flips said:
I liked (and still like) the idea that you can even remove the plugin and the design will still be intact.

Indeed That's just great!

ariq01 · February 2021

Hi guys, did you have any experience thousand or ten thousand static posts with wordpress? How about load cpu or ram?

bikegremlin · February 2021

@ariq01 said:
Hi guys, did you have any experience thousand or ten thousand static posts with wordpress? How about load cpu or ram?

WP users use of the term "static" sounds a bit confusing at times.
It used to mean: pre-made, not database driven content. There are WP plugins and other ways of making WP be basically used as a back-end for creating static web pages.
Good caching plugins also aim to serve once created page, without re-creating them from the database for each visit(or).

In this case, do you mean technically dynamic (database driven/created) pages that aren't getting edited/updated, and/or with no fields for customers to fill in?

ariq01 · February 2021

@bikegremlin said:

@ariq01 said:
Hi guys, did you have any experience thousand or ten thousand static posts with wordpress? How about load cpu or ram?

WP users use of the term "static" sounds a bit confusing at times.
It used to mean: pre-made, not database driven content. There are WP plugins and other ways of making WP be basically used as a back-end for creating static web pages.
Good caching plugins also aim to serve once created page, without re-creating them from the database for each visit(or).

In this case, do you mean technically dynamic (database driven/created) pages that aren't getting edited/updated, and/or with no fields for customers to fill in?

not getting edited/updated, and no fields for customers to fill in. Like sharing your-story blog., just full of text, with 1 image.

vyas · February 2021

@ariq01 said:

@bikegremlin said:

@ariq01 said:
Hi guys, did you have any experience thousand or ten thousand static posts with wordpress? How about load cpu or ram?

WP users use of the term "static" sounds a bit confusing at times.
It used to mean: pre-made, not database driven content. There are WP plugins and other ways of making WP be basically used as a back-end for creating static web pages.
Good caching plugins also aim to serve once created page, without re-creating them from the database for each visit(or).

In this case, do you mean technically dynamic (database driven/created) pages that aren't getting edited/updated, and/or with no fields for customers to fill in?

not getting edited/updated, and no fields for customers to fill in. Like sharing your-story blog., just full of text, with 1 image.

Then why use WP?

You can use Bludit or any other Static CMS for upto 10 K posts (as per their docs) if PHP, or Vuejs/Nodejs?

Btw- I recall reading somewhere that WP themeselves acknowledge that beyond 100 posts WP might not be the best platform. Though I cannot find the source just now .. am on a machine with Bing, and do not want ot use google :-)

bikegremlin · February 2021

@vyas said:

@ariq01 said:

@bikegremlin said:

@ariq01 said:
Hi guys, did you have any experience thousand or ten thousand static posts with wordpress? How about load cpu or ram?

WP users use of the term "static" sounds a bit confusing at times.
It used to mean: pre-made, not database driven content. There are WP plugins and other ways of making WP be basically used as a back-end for creating static web pages.
Good caching plugins also aim to serve once created page, without re-creating them from the database for each visit(or).

In this case, do you mean technically dynamic (database driven/created) pages that aren't getting edited/updated, and/or with no fields for customers to fill in?

not getting edited/updated, and no fields for customers to fill in. Like sharing your-story blog., just full of text, with 1 image.

Then why use WP?

You can use Bludit or any other Static CMS for upto 10 K posts (as per their docs) if PHP, or Vuejs/Nodejs?

Btw- I recall reading somewhere that WP themeselves acknowledge that beyond 100 posts WP might not be the best platform. Though I cannot find the source just now .. am on a machine with Bing, and do not want ot use google :-)

Never got down to writing an article on that, but WP has its pros. The ease of content update and maintenances for one.
I'm yet to find a non-database driven CMS that matches that.

Also - I have a few sites with about 200 posts, and about 50 pages - working with no problems.

No noticeable slow-downs in the front end, or the back end. Hell - after switching to decent shared (reseller in fact) hosting and using LiteSpeed cache, followed by WP core updates, I see better performance in both front end, and back end (back-end stuff is subjective impression, while front-end stuff is measurable).

Having said that - never got close to 1000, much less 10K posts, so no idea about that.

vyas · February 2021

@bikegremlin said:
Hell - after switching to decent shared (reseller in fact) hosting and using LiteSpeed cache, followed by WP core updates, I see better performance in both front end, and back end (back-end stuff is subjective impression, while front-end stuff is measurable).

Have you tried cleaning up the Database (orphaned tables/ revisions to posts, etc.) Works much better if you offload the heavier files or clean up the revisions. Also change the default autosave to 5 minutes. Makes a world of difference at back end.

@ariq01
Lightweight theme, using a CDN, decent hosting (of course), not having too many plugins, caching- standard tools of trade... all matter a lot and contribution is additive.

I am testing WP 5.7 beta with WP 2012 Theme, GeneratePress and stock blocksy. Man it is fast even after importing my old content (from 2014-2018) that had almost every error most newbies make in terms of formatting, plugins, etc. Hosted on Inception Hosting 512 MB RAM VPS- BF offer, with WordOps.

Mew · February 2021

@ariq01 said:
Hi guys, did you have any experience thousand or ten thousand static posts with wordpress? How about load cpu or ram?

How many visitors do you have? I have a wordpress blog with over 1k posts. The posts are mostly GIFs and it runs fine on a 512MB vps with litespeed as webserver. However the CPU usage from the database can get very high depending on the amount of visitors. But using a vps is still faster than shared hosting in my case. Having a SSD makes a world of difference.

bikegremlin · February 2021

@vyas said:

@bikegremlin said:
Hell - after switching to decent shared (reseller in fact) hosting and using LiteSpeed cache, followed by WP core updates, I see better performance in both front end, and back end (back-end stuff is subjective impression, while front-end stuff is measurable).

Have you tried cleaning up the Database (orphaned tables/ revisions to posts, etc.) Works much better if you offload the heavier files or clean up the revisions. Also change the default autosave to 5 minutes. Makes a world of difference at back end.

@ariq01
Lightweight theme, using a CDN, decent hosting (of course), not having too many plugins, caching- standard tools of trade... all matter a lot and contribution is additive.

I am testing WP 5.7 beta with WP 2012 Theme, GeneratePress and stock blocksy. Man it is fast even after importing my old content (from 2014-2018) that had almost every error most newbies make in terms of formatting, plugins, etc. Hosted on Inception Hosting 512 MB RAM VPS- BF offer, with WordOps.

Yes, DB "cleanup" is always a good idea.
Litespeed does a decent job of that too.
For more thorough "operations" - WP-DBManager has worked fine for me.

What's the best way to prolong, or disable the auto-saves?

_MS_ · February 2021

@vyas said:
Btw- I recall reading somewhere that WP themeselves acknowledge that beyond 100 posts WP might not be the best platform.

It's said about pages not posts.

vyas · February 2021

MS said:

@vyas said:
Btw- I recall reading somewhere that WP themeselves acknowledge that beyond 100 posts WP might not be the best platform.

It's said about pages not posts.

That makes more sense. Thanks

LeonDynamic · February 2021

@bikegremlin said:
What's the best way to prolong, or disable the auto-saves?

Use wp-config.php to change auto save settings.

define (‘AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL’, 120); // this setting is measured in seconds so will save the post or page every two minutes (120 seconds)

To disable auto save entirely add this to your functions.php file.

add_action( 'admin_init', 'disable_autosave' );
function disable_autosave() {
wp_deregister_script( 'autosave' );
}

vyas · February 2021

@LeonDynamic said:

@bikegremlin said:
What's the best way to prolong, or disable the auto-saves?

Use wp-config.php to change auto save settings.

define (‘AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL’, 120); // this setting is measured in seconds so will save the post or page every two minutes (120 seconds)

To disable auto save entirely add this to your functions.php file.
add_action( 'admin_init', 'disable_autosave' );
function disable_autosave() {
wp_deregister_script( 'autosave' );
}

This post lists something similar, the first half can be ignored (fluff for SEO IMO but the WP settings are relevant_

https://www.collectiveray.com/wordpress-autosave

wordpress · February 2021

limit post revision too ,

define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', '5' );

Ympker · February 2021

I don't know how @flips thinks about this, but after having used LiveCanvas for a bit now, the first time in a long while when creating WordPress pages..I feel "free". I love the integration with Bootstrap and the possibility to add my custom CSS everywhere, play with animations, save my HTML as a section and re-use, create Gutenberg blocks to use in LiveCanvas and more.
Padding, margin, offset just a click or line of code away. Loving this!

flips · February 2021

@Ympker said:
I don't know how @flips thinks about this, but after having used LiveCanvas for a bit now, the first time in a long while when creating WordPress pages..I feel "free". I love the integration with Bootstrap and the possibility to add my custom CSS everywhere, play with animations, save my HTML as a section and re-use, create Gutenberg blocks to use in LiveCanvas and more.
Padding, margin, offset just a click or line of code away. Loving this!

I haven't tried Gutenberg blocks since I first disabled them when they were new ... I do like LiveCanvas. Sometimes I find Bootstrap itself a bit limiting, but, hey ... Happy with the purchase ...
(Some people might complain about the occasional "reload page to regenerate scss" message.)

vyas · February 2021

I created a "beyond WordPress" or "All CS that are NOT WordPress" discussion over here

vyas · February 2021

When your “premium” WP theme maker goes out of business...your get a mail promoting Wix.

Happening with premiumcoding (makers of Atticus and other themes)

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