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Configuring cache for speed improvement with W3Total Cache

A sample W3 Total Cache configuration for a Listivo site: which caches to switch on, which pages to keep out of the cache, and which options to leave alone.

2 minute read

There is a newer recommendation
This article has been replaced with a better caching configuration based on the LiteSpeed plugin — see Explore Our Official Demo's Hosting and Cache Settings for Top Performance. If you still wish to use W3 Total Cache, follow the instructions below.

Listivo is an ultra-fast theme, and you can make it even faster thanks to cache configuration. On good quality shared servers it is possible to load your website in less than 2 seconds when visitors see it for the first time. The second refresh can be much faster, often below 0.5s.

To configure cache we recommend the W3 Total Cache plugin. It has a free version and more than 1 million active installations. This article shows a sample configuration that will improve the speed of your website.

1. Install and activate W3 Total Cache

The plugin is on the WordPress repository: wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache.

The WordPress Add Plugins screen with "W3 Total Cache" typed into the search box, and green arrows pointing at the Plugins menu, the search field and the Install Now button on the W3 Total Cache result.

2. Check the General Settings

Just after the plugin installation some options should already be enabled, so you will automatically get a speed improvement. In the General Settings you will find:

  • Page Cache – Enable
  • Minify – Enable
  • Database Cache – Enable
  • Browser Cache – Enable

3. Keep the panel and login pages out of the cache

Visit Performance > Page Cache > Never cache the following pages and configure it not to cache your panel and register pages. For example, if you use the demo content and did not rename the pages, they should be excluded this way:

  • /login-register
  • /panel*
The W3 Total Cache Page Cache settings, with green arrows pointing at the Performance menu, the Page Cache sub-item and the "Never cache the following pages" box, which holds wp-.*\.php, index\.php, /panel/ and /login-register.

These 2 lines will disable cache on:

Please make sure you added * at the end of /panel*

4. Browser Cache

Check this one extra box.

The Browser Cache General settings in W3 Total Cache, with the "Set expires header" checkbox ticked and outlined in green, among options such as Set Last-Modified header, Set entity tag (ETag) and Enable HTTP (gzip) compression.

5. It's done

Your website will work faster now. You can check how fast your website is, for example via the Chrome Page Load Timer.

Do not enable more than this
We do not recommend enabling more options, especially those related to Minify Non-Blocking / defer / async — they can create unexpected bugs, for example problems with dynamic search form results.

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