1. WordPress
Optimization
WordPress Optmization
Ben Metcalfe | Co-founder, WP Engine
@dotBen | ben@wpengine.com
San Francisco WordPress Meetup – April 23rd 2012

2. WordPress
Optimization

3. WordPress
Optimization

4. WordPress
Optimization
Before we begin…

5. WordPress
Optimization
Why?
• Um, why not?
• Keep readers/customers happy!
• Stay up under heavy load
• Save $$$

6. WordPress
Optimization
Level 1
Let‟s get the basics out the way :)

7. WordPress
Optimization
Keep WP up to date
Why wouldn‟t you?

8. WordPress
Optimization
Caching plugins FTW!!
W3-Total-Cache
also: WPSuperCache, BatCache

9. WordPress
Optimization
Deactivate unused
plugins
+ delete plugins you don‟t use at all

10. WordPress
Optimization
Avoid bad plugins
Include (but not limited to)
• backupwordpress
• backwpup
• broken-link-checker
• dynamic-related-posts
• file-commander
• google-sitemap-generator
• LinkMan (MyReviewPlugin Link Man)
• MyRP (MyReviewPlugin)
• wp-symposium-alerts

11. WordPress
Optimization
Review your theme
HTML
• does it validate?
• CSS at the top, JS at the bottom (not inline)
PHP
• Any weird code (if it looks bad, it probably is)
• file_get_contents() / fgets()

12. WordPress
Optimization
Is your host slow?

13. WordPress
Optimization
Level 2

14. WordPress
Optimization
Offloading (poor-mans CDN)
Serve images via Flickr/etc

15. WordPress
Optimization
Feedburn your RSS feed
How many requests to your blog are /feed?

16. WordPress
Optimization
Repair your MySQL DB
Sometimes you need to tidy your room :)
PHPMyAdmin, OptimizeDB, manually

17. WordPress
Optimization
Load from multiple sub-
domains
good:
foo1.yourdomain.com, foo2.yourdomain.com
better:
foo1.otherdomain.com, foo2.otheromain2.com

18. WordPress
Optimization
Browser Caching
HTTP Cache-Control
Expires headers
Entity Tags
(W3-Total-Cache, WPSuperCache)

19. WordPress
Optimization
Level 3
Mostly assumes SSH access

20. WordPress
Optimization
Log slow MySQL
queries
Good HOWTO: http://hackmysql.com/nontech

21. WordPress
Optimization
Check site with Profile Tools
WP-Tuner
WPDB Profiling
http://speed.wpengine.com
YSlow

22. WordPress
Optimization
CDN
MaxCDN (we use parent company @ WP Engine)
Amazon CloudFront
CloudFlare
Use all the time or just „emergencies‟

23. WordPress
Optimization
„Smush‟ your images
WPSmush.it plugin

24. WordPress
Optimization
Opcode cache, eg APC
php-apc + W3-Total-Cache

25. WordPress
Optimization
Apache optimizations
Disable .htaccess, use httpd.conf

26. WordPress
Optimization
Dedicated MySQLDB
Box

27. WordPress
Optimization
Level 4
Hitting the big time

28. WordPress
Optimization
Reverse-proxy with
nginx
Run Apache on port 8080
Cache statics
(good HOWTO on wp-performance.com)

29. WordPress
Optimization
Varnish cache
Save/server static pages to/from disk
Ideally don‟t run Varnish on port 80,
Avoid cookie issues

30. WordPress
Optimization
Memcache
Cache WordPress Object Cache
Memcached plugin + PECL memcache
extension
Ideally run Memcache on separate box
wp-memcached-manager – admin plugin

31. WordPress
Optimization
HyperDB
Replaces wpdb class
Multiple database servers
Replication + failover for redundancy
Partitioning for scale

32. WordPress
Optimization
Boss Level

33. WordPress
Optimization
Static site on Amazon
S3
“Movable Type” Model
100% Static site

34. WordPress
Optimization
#Fails

35. WordPress
Optimization
DON‟T edit core files!
No matter what “performance” benefit you think
it will make!

36. WordPress
Optimization
Amazon EC2
… isn‟t a silver bullet

37. WordPress
Optimization
Thank you!
ben@wpengine.com
http://wpengine.com

38. WordPress
Optimization
Q&A
or email: ben@wpengine.com