Does W3T Cache Improve First Time Page Load Speed?

It does if you have page cached enabled.

@azn137, thanks for the response. Out of curiosity how does cache improve the first page load time ever if they have never visited your site? I thought it was just for subsequent visits.

Thanks

Well, I wasn’t clear on that. Yes, if the page has never been visited before, it will be served from the PHP code. If page cache is enabled, an HTML and a gzip versions will be created. So, for the subsequent visitors, even when they haven’t visited your site before, they will be served with the HTML/gzip version instead. Static HTML will be a lot faster than the PHP-generated content that’s created on-the-fly.

W3 Total Cache creates a static HTML page for your website the visitor will be served then, rather than raw PHP code?

This might be the missing piece in the puzzle then. My website gets a GTmetrix page ranking ranging from D to B. It usually takes about 4-5+ seconds to load total. I was waiting to add W3 Total Cache until development on the site was nearly completed.

Hopefully once I am done with developing and add w3 total cache my page load rank will be better than a D.

Correct. Now, we can only hope that Frederick will enable a feature for all the page caches to be created pre-first-visit, that way everybody will be served with an HTML version no matter what.

Can you tell me what exactly is meant by site development? Does this encompass all changes to your site including the addition of new posts or does it refer only to certain structural changes and, if so, what would those be?

thanks

@bill

“Site Development” in this case refers to adding content, posts, blog entries embedding some you tube videos. I think for the most part all of the pages I need for my site map are there.

Thanks

In that case, I expect I may never be done “developing” since I will always be adding content to my site. Would you take that to mean that in my case installation of a caching tool would never be a wise choice?