The de facto standard for blogging platforms, WordPress attracts users because it is easy to install, easy to maintain, and easy to customize. As bloggers become popular and begin attracting more users, WordPress can slow down to the point where a blog’s search engine ranking can go down. Fortunately, a number of valuable plugins exist that address speed issues with WordPress so visitors, search engines and bloggers alike will be happy. Here are 10 WordPress plugins that can speed up your blog.
1. OptimizeDB is a plugin that works with WordPress to speed up database access. Often, when blog performance suffers, it’s because of the underlying MySQL database that drives the WordPress platform. When installed, this plugin optimizes the database tables, making them more responsive to WordPress commands. Once run, Optimize will result in a faster, more compact database that will help Web sites serve up pages in a hurry.
2. DB Cache reloaded works by caching WordPress database requests in static files on the server. When multiple hits on the same blog page occur, WordPress will serve the static file rather than take the time to request it from the database again. This results in significant performance improvements for WordPress that become very significant as visitor traffic increases.
3. PHP Speedy WP works by combining all WordPress CSS and JS files into two files, reducing file access times for page loads. Not only is time saved through a reduction of HTTP requests, and it works in Internet Explorer windows as well as in Firefox. Faster, smoother page loads is something that Google likes to see.
4. WP Smush.it, an image optimizing plugin, works to accelerate the display of images in WordPress. Smush.it optimizes JPEG compression, converts GIF images to PNG, and takes out superfluous colors from each page. Since graphics tend to be large files, compressing them will help you get better ratings in the search engine when it comes to page load times. Smush.it runs in the background on the WordPress server, quietly making rendered images smaller so browsers load them faster.
5. Head Cleaner removes tags from WordPress headers and footers, speeding up the loading of WordPress files.
6. Parallelize takes a unique approach to speeding image loads in WordPress. Parallelize lets images load faster by allowing bloggers to load images from several domain names at the same time, multiplying the number of requests that can be simultaneously processed and dramatically increasing site performance.
7. HTTP Compression detects whether a browser supports compressed pages and outputs WordPress pages in gzip if it does.
8. The Ajax Libraries API makes WordPress work faster by serving several common JavaScript Web libraries to WordPress, speeding the rate at which WordPress and other applications run from your site.
9. CDN Tools is a plugin that loads javascript and multimedia files from a faster, external server rather than from your blog through the use of Content Distribution Networks (CDN). When installed, the plugin will automatically change URLs to look for content from the CDN server rather than from yours. This plugin functions behind the scenes in real time. If uninstalled, WordPress resumes making those calls to your server.
10. While technically not a plugin, WordPress upgrades install from your blog’s control panel much in the same way as plugins do. Many bloggers don’t bother upgrading their software, so they don’t benefit from all the latest enhancements, some of which usually affect page performance. Install the latest WordPress upgrade and you’ll get all the new features and security enhancements, and your blog will load faster too.
This is a guest post by Tom Walker. He is a full time writer and editor for a UK based supplier of ink cartridges. He runs their blog where he posts about packaging, advertising and marketing.
Such a treasure in your blog, I have happy to read. I will follow all the wordpress pluging to speed up my blog. One thing I would like to ask you why since six month there is no update in this blog. I’m waiting for your next post.
Cool you have so many tools for the word press and even i don`t know some them thanks for such a useful information and i never know that such information will help me lot and thanks for this wonderful blogs.
Instead of using all of those: why don’t you just install W3 Total Cache instead?
It’s one plugin that has all of those included. Much better according to me.
And when it comes to WordPress – less is always better. Don’t forget that.
/Hugo.
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Nice post with very useful plug ins. But I think the best plug in ever, if you can figure out how it works, is csv 2 post!!!!
That’s so awesome, I’ve been needing a pick-up on my blog.. Didn’t even know what Caching was until I read your blog.
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