It is very important to improve your blog loading time, as it is beneficial for both Users and Google Bots. Most importantly pages that are loading faster also consume less CPU and memory from your host. The reason why a page will load slow is different type of scripts. All plugins run different scripts in background which consume CPU and Memory from webhosting.
Thus if you are on a shared hosting plan then you will have to take care of CPU usage, otherwise your webhosting can kick out your blog. One solution for is that buy a VPS or Dedicated Server for your blog, but as newbie you will not be in a position to afford VPS or Dedicated server.
A normal VPS plan can cost you $29 to $100 per month and dedicated server can cost you $129 to $200 per month. The only option with newbies are that they will have to stick with shared hosting plan till the traffic increase and they can earn enough money to afford VPS or Dedicated Server.
W3 Total Cache Plugin is one of the recommended plugin by HostGator. This plugin will help you to stay on shared hosting for long time, as it will save cache version of all your blog pages and posts to consume less CPU and Memory from your hosting.
Recently one of my blog was down because of server load. I contacted hostgator and they recommend me to install W3 Total Cache Plugin to handle load on the server.
W3 Total Cache use the features of Minify Plugin which combine css and js files to improve blog load time. The plugin cache pages feeds and posts in memory and in browser to save bandwidth upto 80% and handle load on server. It is compatible with shared, VPS and Dedicated server, but those who are running there blogs on shared hosting it is recommended to install W3 Total Cache as soon as possible.
How to Install W3 Total Cache Plugin?
Download W3 Total Cache Plugin, Install and Activate. [How to Activate Plugin]
How to Configure W3 Total Cache Plugin?
After activating the plugin, Go to Performance tab located at the end of Dashboard to configure the plugin.
Strictly Online Biz has written complete post on configuration of W3 Total Plugin. Read the post to know how to configure the plugin.
If you have any problem then feel free to comment here.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t like w3 total cache. Instead I use hyper cache..
Thanks for the mention. I appreciate it
By the way it’s StrictlyOnlineBiz. Try removing the “k” from the name. Thanks again.
Udegbunam@ Thanks for informing me. I update the post.
So, how did it end up working for you? Did you speed improve?
Mitch@ It works great as it creates cache versions and thus help in improving the blog speed time.
Nice post , congrats .
Unfortunately hostgator does not support mod_deflate or mod_gzip on their shared account …that is the main reason why they recommends Total Cache witch use a php emulate compression and don’t use the full benefits of gzip compression from Apache 2 .
From their points of view is normal because that’s will spare the CPU load on servers …..for the users …..is tricky .
So for Hostgator hosting indeed Total Cache is the best Option .
Regards and keep posting .
Seby
Seby@ Thanks for letting us know that hostgator don’t support mod_deflate and mod_gzip.
Thanks Seby for this information…I was thinking of shifting to Hostgator, and I will keep this information in my mind that I will have to use Total Cache with them.
BTW what about dreamhost, do they allow such permissions??
W3 total cache is actually a great plugin.