Some questions about W3 Total Cache Settings & Functionality

  • @frederick Townes : I thought you asked us to put questions at https://www.w3-edge.com/contact/ instead of the forum here, but I see your activity here (moreover I haven’t received a reply from you to all the emails I sent – – 2 or 3).

    Anyway, I have a few doubts regarding the plugin’s settings and functionality:

    1. These are my settings pages, do they look good?

    – General: https://bit.ly/ojXwk3
    – Page Cache: https://bit.ly/r4Kvmj

    – Minify: (a) As for Minify settings, I haven’t enabled HTML minification, fearing that it could cause issues with Google Analytics and Google Ads. Is this true / possible?

    (b) Also most popular websites using the plugin haven’t enabled HTML minification, and even JS / CSS Minification sometimes. Can you please clarify this: what are the possible ill-effects of HTML, JS, CSS minification? (I really googled that stuff, and couldn’t get proper answers.)

    – Database Cache: https://bit.ly/n9MNm2
    – Object Cache: https://bit.ly/pfezfS

    – Browser Cache: (a) Please take a look: https://bit.ly/qbqAcx

    (b) I see that these are the most-frequently used settings for Object Cache: cache with max-age ("max-age=EXPIRES_SECONDS, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate") and cache ("public") and I’ve got some understanding about them, so please correct me if I am wrong.

    => cache ("public") – – allows the browser to download resources from the cdn rather than from the origin server itself. So, this should be enabled when CDN is being used.

    => cache with max-age ("max-age=EXPIRES_SECONDS, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate") – – I’ve no idea, please clarify.

    – User Agent Groups: (a) Since I’ve disabled W3 Total Cache’s functionality for my mobile site, I use just one group of mobile user agents. That’s okay, right?

    (b) And are you sure that every ., - and <space> should be escaped (added in the front) with a \ ?? Just confirming. And does this apply to any plugin that asks for a list of user agents (like mobile theme plugins)??

    – Content Delivery Network: (a) I am planning to use Softlayer’s Internap as they have a wonderful feature – – POP Pull, wherein I get FTP access, and when I upload a file, it’s instantly cached/copied across all the POPs / edge locations. Which means there will be no latency even for the first visitor from a region.

    Anyway, the question is: as per my requirements I chose “Self-hosted / File Transfer Protocol Upload” option for CDN. Now will the images I upload to posts be stored in both the usual location (/wp-content/uploads/) and the FTP server, or just the FTP server alone?

    If the answer is, just the FTP server alone, is there a way to make it store the images and stuff I upload to posts in both locations?

    (b) In your opinion, is Internap (resold by Softlayer as “Cloudlayer CDN”) good?

    (c) lastly, do these settings look okay? https://bit.ly/pitHfl

    (FYI, I am still using 0.9.2.3, seeing people report some issues with 0.9.2.4)

    Please be as much clear as possible. Many may have these doubts as well. Thanks.

    https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

  • Now will the images I upload to posts be stored in both the usual location (/wp-content/uploads/) and the FTP server, or just the FTP server alone?

    Both locations.

    Thread Starter Aahan Krish

    (@aahan)

    @robnalexpress are you 100% sure? ‘coz this is really, really important to me. And thanks for trying to help. ??

    From one of my sites:

    public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files:

    /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2011
    /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/cache
    /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/cameronwood
    /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/gravity_forms
    /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/noconia
    /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/shareaholic
    /public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/ths-sold2

    public_html/buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files (CDN):

    /public_html/buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2011
    /public_html/buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/cache
    /public_html/buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/cameronwood
    /public_html/buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/noconia
    /public_html/buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/shareaholic
    /public_html/buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/ths-sold2

    100% Files on the CDN do not replace the original file in the default location.

    Thread Starter Aahan Krish

    (@aahan)

    @robnalexpress okay, thanks for that. One question solved. I’ll now wait for Mr.Townes to takeover the rest. Thanks again.

    You will not likely get the information you’re seeking about your settings from Frederick. As he would likely tell you himself, the answers to those questions depend on many factors regarding your server environment and one size does not fit all. The best bet is to start with the default settings and experiment with various settings to determine what works best for you. There are a number of helpful quides available that can serve as a starting point:

    https://c3mdigital.com/2010/09/24/reduce-page-loading-time-w3-total-cache/

    https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-install-and-setup-w3-total-cache-for-beginners/

    https://www.strictlyonlinebiz.com/blog/speed-up-wordpress-with-w3-total-cache/1231/

    Have fun!

    Thread Starter Aahan Krish

    (@aahan)

    LOL robnalexpress, I’ve actually settled upon that configuration after lot of reading (possible that I read all of those links as well and many more).

    can you help me with this question, it’s just another important one…

    (b) I see that these are the most-frequently used settings for Object Cache: cache with max-age ("max-age=EXPIRES_SECONDS, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate") and cache ("public") and I’ve got some understanding about them, so please correct me if I am wrong.

    => cache ("public") – – allows the browser to download resources from the cdn rather than from the origin server itself. So, this should be enabled when CDN is being used.

    => cache with max-age ("max-age=EXPIRES_SECONDS, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate") – – I’ve no idea, please clarify.

    do you have any idea?

    I’ve never heard those descriptions of cache control settings. I always assumed that if there were a CDN set up, everything on the CDN would be served from CDN. I am not using APC, but my settings are:

    CSS & JS: cache with max-age (“max-age=EXPIRES_SECONDS, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate”)

    HTML & XML: cache with validation (“public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate”)

    Media & Other Files: cache with max-age (“max-age=EXPIRES_SECONDS, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate”)

    I use these settings on 3 sites, all of which use the self-hosted CDN, and all objects uploaded to the CDN are served from the CDN in any browser.

    For instance, if you right-click any image on this site or this site you will see that it’s served from the CDN “buyers” or “static”

    Thread Starter Aahan Krish

    (@aahan)

    @robnalexpress That helped thanks.

    @robnalexpress do you mind helping me on this one?

    https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/w3tc-database-not-cached?replies=2

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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