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Search Engine (SEO) & Performance Optimization (WPO) via caching. Integrated caching: CDN, Page, Minify, Object, Fragment, Database support.

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Releases named in the vendor’s changelog or on WordPress.org that the repository does not have yet.

  1. 2.10.7 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Minify: Cache selected external scripts locally for auto minify

    Changelog entry

  2. 2.10.6 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Database Cluster: Restore placeholder unescape so admin searches with wildcards match

    Changelog entry

  3. 2.10.5 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Page Cache: Keep Disk Enhanced cache file operations within the cache directory

    Changelog entry

  4. 2.10.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Lazy Load: Match only quoted image attributes when rewriting src/srcset/sizes

    Changelog entry

  5. 2.10.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Output buffering: Skip REST API requests unless page cache REST caching is enabled

    Changelog entry

  6. 2.10.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Disk cache: Restore file-locking writes on PHP 8+

    Changelog entry

  7. 2.10.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: General Settings: "The link you followed has expired" when emptying all caches

    Changelog entry

  8. 2.10.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Security: Hardened authorization, capability, and request-verification (nonce/CSRF) checks across admin and AJAX endpoints

    Changelog entry

  9. 2.9.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Output buffering: Reverted to previous output buffering from 2.9.1

    Changelog entry

  10. 2.9.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Output buffering: Discard nested OB contents for non-HTML responses (JSON/AJAX) to prevent HTML prepended to JSON output

    Changelog entry

  11. 2.9.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Patch broken access control for Image Service AJAX operations

    Changelog entry

  12. 2.9.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Image Converter: Reset request when status is 404

    Changelog entry

  13. 2.9.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Next-Gen AVIF image conversion (Pro)

    Changelog entry

  14. 2.8.15 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Elementor: Carousel lazy load

    Changelog entry

  15. 2.8.14 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Better logic for mfunc/mclude processing

    Changelog entry

  16. 2.8.13 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Sanitize mfunc/mclude content in REST calls

    Changelog entry

  17. 2.8.12 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Lazy load background-image style handing

    Changelog entry

  18. 2.8.11 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Avoid redundant object cache misses in WP 6.4 - 6.7

    Changelog entry

  19. 2.8.10 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Exception handling on activation

    Changelog entry

  20. 2.8.9 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: AWS S3 test

    Changelog entry

  21. 2.8.8 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Usage Statistics JavaScript error

    Changelog entry

  22. 2.8.7 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Exit survey email field submission

    Changelog entry

  23. 2.8.6 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Error deactivating when selected to delete plugin data

    Changelog entry

  24. 2.8.5 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: CDN: Amazon S3 long hostname for default region

    Changelog entry

  25. 2.8.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Deactivation modal JS error

    Changelog entry

  26. 2.8.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: HTTP API calls for checking required files

    Changelog entry

  27. 2.8.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Added additional user capability checks

    Changelog entry

  28. 2.8.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Ensure WP Cron events get scheduled when using the Setup Guide wizard and on upgrade

    Changelog entry

  29. 2.8.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Always Cached extension

    Changelog entry

  30. 2.7.7 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Update: CDN: Added support for Microsoft Azure EntraID Managed identities

    Changelog entry

  31. 2.7.6 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Improved cache flushing on actions/updates

    Changelog entry

  32. 2.7.5 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Added dismissible notifications

    Changelog entry

  33. 2.7.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: WP-CLI get option output for array type

    Changelog entry

  34. 2.7.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Page Cache: File Cleaner now uses the correct expiration setting

    Changelog entry

  35. 2.7.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Page Cache cleanup purging all if browsercache.html.lifetime > W3TCCACHEFILEEXPIREMAX

    Changelog entry

  36. 2.7.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Page Cache: Prefer Brotli over Gzip

    Changelog entry

  37. 2.7.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Performance Dashboard update

    Changelog entry

  38. 2.6.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Image Converter extension activation

    Changelog entry

  39. 2.6.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Added support for Bunny.Net CDN

    Changelog entry

  40. 2.5.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Added Delay Scripts (Pro)

    Changelog entry

  41. 2.4.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Add a fallback for the older version of wp-content/db.php

    Changelog entry

  42. 2.4.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Added filter "w3tcconfigitemobjectcache.enabled" to allow for disabling W3TC object cache

    Changelog entry

  43. 2.3.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Fragment Cache: Fatal error when displaying registered groups

    Changelog entry

  44. 2.3.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Correct interpolation of a symlinked cache directory

    Changelog entry

  45. 2.3.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: PHP 8 compatibility: Invalid return type if Browser Cache is disabled

    Changelog entry

  46. 2.3.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: PageSpeed Insights reports and performance page widget

    Changelog entry

  47. 2.2.12 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Comment status change error

    Changelog entry

  48. 2.2.11 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Error when flushing page cache after an attachment update

    Changelog entry

  49. 2.2.10 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Optimized and fixed object cache flushing

    Changelog entry

  50. 2.2.9 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Reset our textdomain for translations

    Changelog entry

  51. 2.2.8 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Escape output in compatibility checker, minify, and New Relic pages

    Changelog entry

  52. 2.2.7 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Updated database cache connection class to avoid deprecated warnings in WordPress 6.1

    Changelog entry

  53. 2.2.6 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Error clearing all cache when using CloudFront full CDN in Pro

    Changelog entry

  54. 2.2.5 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Revert WooCommerce Variation Image Gallery plugin CDN filter

    Changelog entry

  55. 2.2.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Extensions URL in settings

    Changelog entry

  56. 2.2.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Redis Cache: Removed exception on warnings

    Changelog entry

  57. 2.2.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Security: PHPCS and WPCS updates

    Changelog entry

  58. 2.2.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Cloudflare: Removed use of the retired iplkup V1 endpoint

    Changelog entry

  59. 2.2.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Image Service extension: WebP conversion options

    Changelog entry

  60. 2.1.9 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Cloudflare Dashboard Widget: Updated to use GraphQL

    Changelog entry

  61. 2.1.8 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Corrected handling of robots.txt (file and filter)

    Changelog entry

  62. 2.1.7 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Corrected relative paths used in the JS minify YUI Compressor

    Changelog entry

  63. 2.1.6 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: JS minify issue with template literal backticks

    Changelog entry

  64. 2.1.5 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Sanitize extension argument

    Changelog entry

  65. 2.1.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Use Memcached server from config for Nginx rules instead of localhost

    Changelog entry

  66. 2.1.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Authenticated Persistent XSS & XFS in CDN admin page

    Changelog entry

  67. 2.1.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Skip removing spaces around "" tags in HTML Minify

    Changelog entry

  68. 2.1.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Move Minify library to a namespace to avoid conflicts with other plugins

    Changelog entry

  69. 2.1.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Added a Feature Showcase to highlight new and existing features

    Changelog entry

  70. 2.0.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Corrected redirection logic for the new Setup Guide

    Changelog entry

  71. 2.0.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Added the Setup Guide wizard for onboarding

    Changelog entry

  72. 0.15.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Minify: Do not remove quotes around meta tags

    Changelog entry

  73. 0.15.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Fixed Memcached flush logic

    Changelog entry

  74. 0.15.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Feature: Added TransparentCDN full-site delivery option

    Changelog entry

  75. 0.14.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Cleanup widget and postbox display for WordPress 5.5

    Changelog entry

  76. 0.14.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Take "Accepted Query Strings" into account when "Cache query strings" enabled

    Changelog entry

  77. 0.14.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed WP-CLI redirect issue in multisite

    Changelog entry

  78. 0.14.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed CSS minify URL rewrite logic that affected some lazy loading and CSS URL addresses using protocols

    Changelog entry

  79. 0.14.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Added lazy loading for Google Maps

    Changelog entry

  80. 0.13.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed HTML minification of img elements containing embedded SVG strings

    Changelog entry

  81. 0.13.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fix: Don't store content of HEAD requests

    Changelog entry

  82. 0.13.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed php warnings in PgCacheContentGrabber.php

    Changelog entry

  83. 0.13.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Added new Pro feature, Debug - Purge Stack Trace

    Changelog entry

  84. 0.12.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Added querystring based URL structures for AMP pages

    Changelog entry

  85. 0.11.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Added recommendation for BoldGrid's Total Upkeep plugin

    Changelog entry

  86. 0.10.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed compatibility with wpdb::prepare in WordPress 5.3

    Changelog entry

  87. 0.10.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed slowdown in memcached engine

    Changelog entry

  88. 0.10.0 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Improved Statistics component for pro users

    Changelog entry

  89. 0.9.7.5 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Updated AWS library

    Changelog entry

  90. 0.9.7.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed PHP warning when Redis integration not configured correctly

    Changelog entry

  91. 0.9.7.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed caching of redirect responses based on empty response body

    Changelog entry

  92. 0.9.7.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed fatal error during media file upload with CDN module active

    Changelog entry

  93. 0.9.7.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed undefined variable notice

    Changelog entry

  94. 0.9.7 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed minified files not being hosted by CDN when enabled if "host minified files" is disabled

    Changelog entry

  95. 0.9.6 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed anonymous usage tracking, default to disabled

    Changelog entry

  96. 0.9.5.4 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed regression with browser caching and query strings

    Changelog entry

  97. 0.9.5.3 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed handling of HTTP compressed documents in PHP v5.3 (via amiga-500)

    Changelog entry

  98. 0.9.5.2 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed security issue by protecting configuration data by adding .php to relevant files

    Changelog entry

  99. 0.9.5.1 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed missing namespace, which caused issues with other implementations of Google APIs

    Changelog entry

  100. 0.9.5 Not available yet Release date not stated

    Fixed XSS vulnerability

    Changelog entry

All 101 releases not available yet, in the changelog

Readme

License

W3 Total Cache

Search Engine (SEO) & Performance Optimization (WPO) via caching. Integrated caching: CDN, Page, Minify, Object, Fragment, Database support.

W3 Total Cache (W3TC) improves the SEO, Core Web Vitals and overall user experience of your site by increasing website performance and reducing load times by leveraging features like content delivery network (CDN) integration and the latest best practices.

W3TC is the only web host agnostic Web Performance Optimization (WPO) framework for WordPress trusted by millions of publishers, web developers, and web hosts worldwide for more than a decade. It is the total performance solution for optimizing WordPress Websites.

BENEFITS

  • Improvements in search engine result page rankings, especially for mobile-friendly websites and sites that use SSL
  • At least 10x improvement in overall site performance (Grade A in WebPagetest or significant Google PageSpeed improvements) when fully configured
  • Improved conversion rates and "site performance" which affect your site's rank on Google.com
  • "Instant" repeat page views: browser caching
  • Optimized progressive render: pages start rendering quickly and can be interacted with more quickly
  • Reduced page load time: increased visitor time on site; visitors view more pages
  • Improved web server performance; sustain high traffic periods
  • Up to 80% bandwidth savings when you minify HTML, minify CSS and minify JS files.

KEY FEATURES

  • Compatible with shared hosting, virtual private / dedicated servers and dedicated servers / clusters
  • Transparent content delivery network (CDN) management with Media Library, theme files and WordPress itself
  • Mobile support: respective caching of pages by referrer or groups of user agents including theme switching for groups of referrers or user agents
  • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) support
  • Secure Socket Layer (SSL/TLS) support
  • Caching of (minified and compressed) pages and posts in memory or on disk or on (FSD) CDN (by user agent group)
  • Caching of (minified and compressed) CSS and JavaScript in memory, on disk or on CDN
  • Caching of feeds (site, categories, tags, comments, search results) in memory or on disk or on CDN
  • Caching of search results pages (i.e., URIs with query string variables) in memory or on disk
  • Caching of database objects in memory or on disk
  • Caching of objects in memory or on disk
  • Caching of fragments in memory or on disk
  • Caching methods include local Disk, Redis, Memcached, APC, APCu, eAccelerator, XCache, and WinCache
  • Minify CSS, Minify JavaScript and Minify HTML with granular control
  • Minification of posts and pages and RSS feeds
  • Minification of inline, embedded or 3rd party JavaScript with automated updates to assets
  • Minification of inline, embedded or 3rd party CSS with automated updates to assets
  • Defer non-critical CSS and JavaScript for rendering pages faster than ever before
  • Defer offscreen images using Lazy Load to improve the user experience
  • Browser caching using cache-control, future expire headers and entity tags (ETag) with "cache-busting"
  • JavaScript grouping by template (home page, post page etc) with embed location control
  • Non-blocking JavaScript embedding
  • Import post attachments directly into the Media Library (and CDN)
  • Leverage our multiple CDN integrations to optimize images
  • WP-CLI support for cache purging, query string updating and more
  • Various security features to help ensure website safety
  • Caching statistics for performance insights of any enabled feature
  • Extension framework for customization or extensibility for Cloudflare, WPML and much more
  • Reverse proxy integration via Nginx or Varnish
  • Image Converter extension provides modern image format conversion (e.g., WebP, AVIF) from common image formats (on upload and on demand)

With over a million active installs, W3 Total Cache is the most comprehensive WordPress caching plugin available and has robust premium features that help deliver an exceptional user experience.

  • Full Site Delivery: Serve your entire site from a Content Delivery Network (CDN), ensuring faster load times worldwide.
  • Fragment Cache: Optimize the caching of dynamic content while still improving performance.
  • REST API Caching: Speed up your headless WordPress site by caching REST API calls.
  • Eliminate Render-Blocking CSS: Ensure your CSS doesn't hold up page loading, providing faster initial paint.
  • Delay Scripts: Improve performance by delaying the loading of non-essential scripts until they are needed.
  • Preload Requests: Boost page performance by preloading critical resources before they're requested.
  • Remove CSS/JS: Clean up unnecessary CSS and JavaScript files that slow down your pages.
  • Lazy Load Google Maps: Load Google Maps only when it's visible, reducing unnecessary requests.
  • WPML Extension: Optimize performance on multilingual sites powered by WPML.
  • Caching Statistics: Get detailed insights on cache usage and performance improvements.
  • Purge Logs: Keep your site clean by automatically purging unnecessary cache logs.

Try W3 Total Cache Pro risk-free with our 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, we will refund your purchase.

To help you understand the impact of individual features on your website's performance, we've tested each feature separately to see its effect on Google PageSpeed scores. While optimal results come from configuring several different caching tools together, the following individual features also show significant improvements on their own:

This feature removes CSS and JavaScript files that are not needed for the current page, reducing the load time.

  • Added over 27 points to the Google PageSpeed score (Before: 57.2 / After: 86.7)
  • Reduced the Potential Savings From Unused JavaScript from 127.5 KiB to 84 KiB
  • View the test results

Full Site Delivery optimizes the delivery of your entire site, enhancing the server response time.

  • Added a 99% performance enhancement to the Average Server Response Time (Before: 3413 ms / After: 34 ms)
  • View the test results

This feature eliminates CSS that blocks the rendering of your page, speeding up the initial load time.

  • Added over 17 points to the Google PageSpeed score (Before: 53.75 / After: 71)
  • Reduced the Potential Savings From Render-Blocking Resources by over 94% (Before: 2432.5 ms / After: 125 ms)
  • Improved the Largest Contentful Paint time by over 56% (Before: 7s / After: 3.04s)
  • View the test results

Delay Scripts postpones the loading of certain scripts until they are needed, reducing initial load times.

  • Added 14 points to the Google PageSpeed Performance score (Before: 54.25 / After: 68.5)
  • Reduced the Time Third-Party Code Blocked The Main Thread For by 62% (Before: 825 ms / After: 197.5 ms)
  • View the test results

This feature caches API responses, reducing server load and speeding up API interactions.

  • Reduced the Average Server Load by 40% (Before: 0.62 / After: 0.37)
  • Sped up API Responses by 84.5% (Before: 968ms / After: 150ms)
  • Reduced the Average Server Load by 24% under during a major traffic spike (Before: 34.55 / After: 26.19)
  • View the test results

Converts images to modern formats like WebP or AVIF, which are more efficient and faster to load.

Delays the loading of Google Maps until the user interacts with them, reducing initial load time.

  • Added 10 points to the Google PageSpeed score (Before: 66 / After: 76)
  • Reduced the Total Blocking Time Performance score by 72% (Before: 287.5 ms / After: 80 ms)
  • View the test results

Speed up your site tremendously, improve core web vitals and the overall user experience for your visitors without having to change your WordPress host, theme, plugins or your content production workflow.

What it adds

  • WP-CLI: total-cache, w3-total-cache, w3tc

Installation

  1. Deactivate and uninstall any other caching plugin you may be using. Pay special attention if you have customized the rewrite rules for fancy permalinks, have previously installed a caching plugin or have any browser caching rules as W3TC will automate management of all best practices. Also make sure wp-content/ and wp-content/uploads/ (temporarily) have 777 permissions before proceeding, e.g. in the terminal: # chmod 777 /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/wp-content/ using your web hosting control panel or your FTP / SSH account.
  2. Login as an administrator to your WordPress Admin account. Using the "Add New" menu option under the "Plugins" section of the navigation, you can either search for: w3 total cache or if you've downloaded the plugin already, click the "Upload" link, find the .zip file you download and then click "Install Now". Or you can unzip and FTP upload the plugin to your plugins directory (wp-content/plugins/). In either case, when done wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache/ should exist.
  3. Locate and activate the plugin on the "Plugins" page. Page caching will automatically be running in basic mode. Set the permissions of wp-content and wp-content/uploads back to 755, e.g. in the terminal: # chmod 755 /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/wp-content/.
  4. Now click the "Settings" link to proceed to the "General Settings" tab; in most cases, "disk enhanced" mode for page cache is a "good" starting point.
  5. The "Compatibility mode" option found in the advanced section of the "Page Cache Settings" tab will enable functionality that optimizes the interoperablity of caching with WordPress, is disabled by default, but highly recommended. Years of testing in hundreds of thousands of installations have helped us learn how to make caching behave well with WordPress. The tradeoff is that disk enhanced page cache performance under load tests will be decreased by ~20% at scale.
  6. Recommended: On the "Minify Settings" tab, all of the recommended settings are preset. If auto mode causes issues with your web site's layout, switch to manual mode and use the help button to simplify discovery of your CSS and JS files and groups. Pay close attention to the method and location of your JS group embeddings. See the plugin's FAQ for more information on usage.
  7. Recommended: On the "Browser Cache" tab, HTTP compression is enabled by default. Make sure to enable other options to suit your goals.
  8. Recommended: If you already have a content delivery network (CDN) provider, proceed to the "Content Delivery Network" tab and populate the fields and set your preferences. If you do not use the Media Library, you will need to import your images etc into the default locations. Use the Media Library Import Tool on the "Content Delivery Network" tab to perform this task. If you do not have a CDN provider, you can still improve your site's performance using the "Self-hosted" method. On your own server, create a subdomain and matching DNS Zone record; e.g. static.domain.com and configure FTP options on the "Content Delivery Network" tab accordingly. Be sure to FTP upload the appropriate files, using the available upload buttons.
  9. Optional: On the "Database Cache" tab, the recommended settings are preset. If using a shared hosting account use the "disk" method with caution, the response time of the disk may not be fast enough, so this option is disabled by default. Try object caching instead for shared hosting.
  10. Optional: On the "Object Cache" tab, all of the recommended settings are preset. If using a shared hosting account use the "disk" method with caution, the response time of the disk may not be fast enough, so this option is disabled by default. Test this option with and without database cache to ensure that it provides a performance increase.
  11. Optional: On the "User Agent Groups" tab, specify any user agents, like mobile phones if a mobile theme is used.

Faq

Why does speed matter?

Search engines like Google, measure and factor in the speed of web sites in their ranking algorithm. When they recommend a site they want to make sure users find what they're looking for quickly. So in effect you and Google should have the same objective.

Speed is among the most significant success factors web sites face. In fact, your site's speed directly affects your income (revenue) — it's a fact. Some high traffic sites conducted research and uncovered the following:

  • Google.com: +500 ms (speed decrease) -> -20% traffic loss [1]
  • Yahoo.com: +400 ms (speed decrease) -> -5-9% full-page traffic loss (visitor left before the page finished loading) [2]
  • Amazon.com: +100 ms (speed decrease) -> -1% sales loss [1]

A thousandth of a second is not a long time, yet the impact is quite significant. Even if you're not a large company (or just hope to become one), a loss is still a loss. W3 Total Cache is your solution for faster websites, happier visitors and better results.

Many of the other consequences of poor performance were discovered more than a decade ago:

  • Lower perceived credibility (Fogg et al. 2001)
  • Lower perceived quality (Bouch, Kuchinsky, and Bhatti 2000)
  • Increased user frustration (Ceaparu et al. 2004)
  • Increased blood pressure (Scheirer et al. 2002)
  • Reduced flow rates (Novak, Hoffman, and Yung 200)
  • Reduced conversion rates (Akamai 2007)
  • Increased exit rates (Nielsen 2000)
  • Are perceived as less interesting (Ramsay, Barbesi, and Preece 1998)
  • Are perceived as less attractive (Skadberg and Kimmel 2004)

There are a number of resources that have been documenting the role of performance in success on the web, W3 Total Cache exists to give you a framework to tune your application or site without having to do years of research.

Why is W3 Total Cache better than other caching solutions?

It's a complete framework. Most cache plugins available do a great job at achieving a couple of performance gains. Total Cache is different because it remedies numerous performance reducing aspects of any web site. It goes farther than the basics, beyond merely reducing CPU usage (load) or bandwidth consumption for HTML pages. Equally important, the plugin requires no theme modifications, modifications to your .htaccess (mod_rewrite rules) or programming compromises to get started. Most importantly, it's the only plugin designed to optimize all practical hosting environments small or large. The options are many and setup is easy.

I've never heard of any of this stuff; my site is fine, no one complains about the speed. Why should I install this?

Rarely do readers take the time to complain. They typically just stop browsing earlier than you'd prefer and may not return altogether. This is the only plugin specifically designed to make sure that all aspects of your site are as fast as possible. Google is placing more emphasis on the speed of a site as a factor in rankings; this plugin helps with that too.

It's in every web site owner's best interest is to make sure that the performance of your site is not hindering its success.

Which WordPress versions are supported?

To use all features in the suite, WordPress 6.0 or higher with PHP 7.4 or higher is required.

Why doesn't minify work for me?

Great question. W3 Total Cache uses several open source tools to attempt to combine and optimize CSS, JavaScript and HTML etc. Unfortunately some trial and error is required on the part of developers is required to make sure that their code can be successfully minified with the various libraries W3 Total Cache supports. Even still, if developers do test their code thoroughly, they cannot be sure that interoperability with other code your site may have. This fault does not lie with any single party here, because there are thousands of plugins and theme combinations that a given site can have, there are millions of possible combinations of CSS, JavaScript etc.

A good rule of thumb is to try auto mode, work with a developer to identify the code that is not compatible and start with combine only mode (the safest optimization) and increase the optimization to the point just before functionality (JavaScript) or user interface / layout (CSS) breaks in your site.

We're always working to make this more simple and straight forward in future releases, but this is not an undertaking we can realize on our own. When you find a plugin, theme or file that is not compatible with minification reach out to the developer and ask them either to provide a minified version with their distribution or otherwise make sure their code is minification-friendly.

What about comments? Does the plugin slow down the rate at which comments appear?

On the contrary, as with any other action a user can perform on a site, faster performance will encourage more of it. The cache is so quickly rebuilt in memory that it's no trouble to show visitors the most current version of a post that's experiencing Digg, Slashdot, Drudge Report, Yahoo Buzz or Twitter effect.

Will the plugin interfere with other plugins or widgets?

No, on the contrary if you use the minify settings you will improve their performance by several times.

Does this plugin work with WordPress in network mode?

Indeed it does.

Does this plugin work with BuddyPress (bbPress)?

Yes.

Will this plugin speed up WP Admin?

Yes, indirectly - if you have a lot of bloggers working with you, you will find that it feels like you have a server dedicated only to WP Admin once this plugin is enabled; the result, increased productivity.

Which web servers do you support?

We are aware of no incompatibilities with apache 1.3+, nginx 0.7+, IIS 5+ or litespeed 4.0.2+. If there's a web server you feel we should be actively testing (e.g. lighttpd), we're interested in hearing.

Is this plugin server cluster and load balancer friendly?

Yes, built from the ground up with scale and current hosting paradigms in mind.

What is the purpose of the "Media Library Import" tool and how do I use it?

The media library import tool is for old or "messy" WordPress installations that have attachments (images etc in posts or pages) scattered about the web server or "hot linked" to 3rd party sites instead of properly using the media library.

The tool will scan your posts and pages for the cases above and copy them to your media library, update your posts to use the link addresses and produce a .htaccess file containing the list of of permanent redirects, so search engines can find the files in their new location.

You should backup your database before performing this operation.

How do I find the JS and CSS to optimize (minify) them with this plugin?

Use the "Help" button available on the Minify settings tab. Once open, the tool will look for and populate the CSS and JS files used in each template of the site for the active theme. To then add a file to the minify settings, click the checkbox next to that file. The embed location of JS files can also be specified to improve page render performance. Minify settings for all installed themes can be managed from the tool as well by selecting the theme from the drop down menu. Once done configuring minify settings, click the apply and close button, then save settings in the Minify settings tab.

I don't understand what a CDN has to do with caching, that's completely different, no?

Technically no, a CDN is a high performance cache that stores static assets (your theme files, media library etc) in various locations throughout the world in order to provide low latency access to them by readers in those regions. Use Total Cache to accelerate your site by putting your content closer to your users with our many CDN integrations including Cloudflare, StackPath, AWS and more.

How do I use an Origin Pull (Mirror) CDN?

Login to your CDN providers control panel or account management area. Following any set up steps they provide, create a new "pull zone" or "bucket" for your site's domain name. If there's a set up wizard or any troubleshooting tips your provider offers, be sure to review them. In the CDN tab of the plugin, enter the hostname your CDN provider provided in the "replace site's hostname with" field. You should always do a quick check by opening a test file from the CDN hostname, e.g. http://cdn.domain.com/favicon.ico. Troubleshoot with your CDN provider until this test is successful.

Now go to the General tab and click the checkbox and save the settings to enable CDN functionality and empty the cache for the changes to take effect.

How do I configure Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) or Amazon CloudFront as my CDN?

First create an S3 account (unless using origin pull); it may take several hours for your account credentials to be functional. Next, you need to obtain your "Access key ID" and "Secret key" from the "Access Credentials" section of the "Security Credentials" page of "My Account." Make sure the status is "active." Next, make sure that "Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)" is the selected "CDN type" on the "General Settings" tab, then save the changes. Now on the "Content Delivery Network Settings" tab enter your "Access key," "Secret key" and enter a name (avoid special characters and spaces) for your bucket in the "Create a bucket" field by clicking the button of the same name. If using an existing bucket simply specify the bucket name in the "Bucket" field. Click the "Test S3 Upload" button and make sure that the test is successful, if not check your settings and try again. Save your settings.

Unless you wish to use CloudFront, you're almost done, skip to the next paragraph if you're using CloudFront. Go to the "General Settings" tab and click the "Enable" checkbox and save the settings to enable CDN functionality. Empty the cache for the changes to take effect. If preview mode is active you will need to "deploy" your changes for them to take effect.

To use CloudFront, perform all of the steps above, except select the "Amazon CloudFront" "CDN type" in the "Content Delivery Network" section of the "General Settings" tab. When creating a new bucket, the distribution ID will automatically be populated. Otherwise, proceed to the AWS Management Console and create a new distribution: select the S3 Bucket you created earlier as the "Origin," enter a CNAME if you wish to add one or more to your DNS Zone. Make sure that "Distribution Status" is enabled and "State" is deployed. Now on "Content Delivery Network" tab of the plugin, copy the subdomain found in the AWS Management Console and enter the CNAME used for the distribution in the "CNAME" field.

You may optionally, specify up to 10 hostnames to use rather than the default hostname, doing so will improve the render performance of your site's pages. Additional hostnames should also be specified in the settings for the distribution you're using in the AWS Management Console.

Now go to the General tab and click the "Enable" checkbox and save the settings to enable CDN functionality and empty the cache for the changes to take effect. If preview mode is active you will need to "deploy" your changes for them to take effect.

How do I configure Rackspace Cloud Files as my CDN?

First create an account. Next, in the "Content Delivery Network" section of the "General Settings" tab, select Rackspace Cloud Files as the "CDN Type." Now, in the "Configuration" section of the "Content Delivery Network" tab, enter the "Username" and "API key" associated with your account (found in the API Access section of the rackspace cloud control panel) in the respective fields. Next enter a name for the container to use (avoid special characters and spaces). If the operation is successful, the container's ID will automatically appear in the "Replace site's hostname with" field. You may optionally, specify the container name and container ID of an existing container if you wish. Click the "Test Cloud Files Upload" button and make sure that the test is successful, if not check your settings and try again. Save your settings. You're now ready to export your media library, theme and any other files to the CDN.

You may optionally, specify up to 10 hostnames to use rather than the default hostname, doing so will improve the render performance of your site's pages.

Now go to the General tab and click the "Enable" checkbox and save the settings to enable CDN functionality and empty the cache for the changes to take effect. If preview mode is active you will need to "deploy" your changes for them to take effect.

What is the purpose of the "modify attachment URLs" button?

If the domain name of your site has changed, this tool is useful in updating your posts and pages to use the current addresses. For example, if your site used to be www.domain.com, and you decided to change it to domain.com, the result would either be many "broken" images or many unnecessary redirects (which slow down the visitor's browsing experience). You can use this tool to correct this and similar cases. Correcting the URLs of your images also allows the plugin to do a better job of determining which images are actually hosted with the CDN.

As always, it never hurts to back up your database first.

Is this plugin comptatible with TDO Mini Forms?

Captcha and recaptcha will work fine, however you will need to prevent any pages with forms from being cached. Add the page's URI to the "Never cache the following pages" box on the Page Cache Settings tab.

Is this plugin comptatible with GD Star Rating?

Yes. Follow these steps:

  1. Enable dynamic loading of ratings by checking GD Star Rating -> Settings -> Features "Cache support option"
  2. If Database cache enabled in W3 Total Cache add wp_gdsr to "Ignored query stems" field in the Database Cache settings tab, otherwise ratings will not updated after voting
  3. Empty all caches

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Upgrade Notice

2.10.7

This is a security update. All users are strongly encouraged to update. This update also adds local caching of selected external scripts, one-pass sitemap preload, and fixes for CDN media paths, Google PageSpeed authorization, and settings persistence.

2.10.6

This is a security update. All users are strongly encouraged to update. This update improves settings handling, CDN and minify behavior, TLS defaults, and diagnostic logging.

2.10.5

This is a security update. All users are strongly encouraged to update.

2.10.4

This update restores filterable cache-purge capabilities and improves Lazy Load image attribute handling. All users are encouraged to update.

2.10.3

This update resolves Block Editor save failures related to output buffering and restores Defer Scripts timeout configuration. All users are encouraged to update.

2.10.1

This update resolves regressions introduced in 2.10.0. Users who upgraded to 2.10.0 are encouraged to update.

2.10.0

This is a MAJOR security update that resolves multiple vulnerabilities. All users are strongly urged to update to this version as soon as possible.

2.9.4

This is a security update. Users who implement mfunc/mclude should update to this version.

2.8.13

This is a security update. Users who implement mfunc/mclude should update to this version.

2.8.2

This is a security update. All users are encouraged to update to this version.

2.8.1

Users with Object Cache using Disk should upgrade to ensure proper garbage collection. A memory-based engine is recommended for database and object caches. Using Disk can lead to a large number of files. Hosting accounts with inode limits may experience issues, including downtime.

2.7.3

Thanks for using W3 Total Cache! The minimum required PHP version has been raised to PHP 7.2.5. We recommend using PHP 8. StackPath CDN has cased all operations and will be removed in a future release. We recommend switching to Bunny CDN.

0.9.7.5

Users running Cloudflare CDN may experience issues beginning June 6th. Please upgrade to W3 Total Cache 0.9.7.5 for the latest Cloudflare patches.

0.9.5.3

Thanks for using W3 Total Cache! This release includes compatibility fixes that have been reported. In addition, numerous other improvements are now yours!

0.9.5.2

Thanks for using W3 Total Cache! This release includes security fixes that have been reported. In addition, numerous other improvements are now yours!

0.9.5.1

Thanks for using W3 Total Cache! This release includes security fixes that have been reported. In addition, numerous other improvements are now yours!

0.9.5

Thanks for using W3 Total Cache! This release includes fixes for recent XSS security issues that have been reported. In addition, hundreds of other improvements are now yours!

0.9.4

Thanks for using W3 Total Cache! This release introduces hundreds of well-tested stability fixes since the last release as well as a new mode called "edge mode," which allows us to make releases more often containing new features that are still undergoing testing or active iteration.

0.9.2.11

This release includes various fixes for MaxCDN and minify users. As always there are general stability / compatibility improvements. Make sure to test in a sandbox or staging environment and report any issues via the bug submission form available on the support tab of the plugin.

0.9.2.10

This release includes performance improvements for every type of caching and numerous bug fixes and stability / compatibility improvements. Make sure to keep W3TC updated to ensure optimal reliability and security.

0.9.2.9

This release addresses security issues for Cloudflare users as well as users who implement fragment caching via the mfunc functionality. For those using mfunc, temporarily disable page caching to allow yourself time to check the FAQ tab for new usage instructions.

0.9.2.8

WordPress attempts to use built-in support for ma

Install

composer require meteorgpl-plugin/w3-total-cache

The vendor’s license checks are intact: activate the plugin in WordPress with a license key bought from the vendor.

License

The plugin declares no license. The code is redistributed under the license the vendor declared in the plugin’s own headers.

Artwork, fonts, media and documents that may be licensed separately are not redistributed; the licensing page explains what is replaced or removed, and the security tab lists it per version. Support and update entitlement come with the license you buy from the vendor.

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