Be careful with W3 total cache at Wealthy Affiliate
Well, I have been here long enough to do more than 1 blog in a day! I'm an "old-timer" now!
There are a lot of posts around here about W3 total cache being the "ultimate" speed-up and absolutely the best caching plugin around for speeding up your website. Personally I have found differently.
Well, I can't say it's unsuitable for everyone and it may perform different depending on what theme you are using - but - I have had nothing but bad experiences with it.
First the appearance of my website a few months ago got totally trashed by it and only by uninstalling did the appearance come back to anything like normal-looking.
Now I am using totally different themes but GT website speed test came back with horrible results (e.g. rated E). I also received comments on my website that the images were very slow loading. I didn't take these seriously at first but then began to think about it.
Today, simply by uninstalling the W3 cache program my website speed came back to "D" - still not good but better than before it was "operating".
So just a warning, W3 total cache may be the highest rated caching program out there but it it probably has to be really fine-tuned in it's operation otherwise it will make things worse, not better!
I may investigate some other cache programs in the future but for now I will go "cache-free" and try to just concentrate on my content (that's Kyle's advice, you know!)
Glyn
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I tried it a few years ago - screwed up my theme too. I guess it just doesn't play well with certain theme elements. It obviously works for many people but there are exceptions.
Hi, Ian ... It seems that many of these "plugins" are for the "techies" and perhaps the main reason they are not recommended in the beginning by Kyle.
Just stating that I am not a techie and most of the time, my site goes coo-coo because of some 1 little thing that I include or don't include ... lol ...
Some time ago I tested ZenCache and realized that my site was fater without it. Here is the blog where I showed the numbers. I do not see the purpose of it. Do cache plugins really increase website speed? So now from your experience similar is with total cache. I wonder why we are using them.
I have "googled" and also went on Wordpress forums to read about other cacheing plugins. There are rave comments about all of them, but there are also low ratings. There are horror stories on each of them. Like "will break your site" type horror stories. So, this has made me avoid such plugins.
Yeah W3 can be very tricky. I actually use WP Fastest Cache. Painlessly easy to configure :)
http://tbwhs.com/blog/wp-fastest-cache/
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Probably best to listen to Kyle's advice ...