WordPress, Blogging & Tech Tutorials

How to Check if Your Site is Cached

If you’re trying to speed up your site by using a caching plugin or other cache tool, it’s critical that you know whether or not the page is actually cached!

Caching can happen at different layers of your site so we’ll look at how to check:

Page caching from a plugin
Server caching from your host
CDN caching

For the purposes of this post I’m referring specifically to page caching, so we’re talking about the HTML of the page. I’m not referring to browser or other caching of your files like CSS, JS, images etc.

I’m going to show you manual methods to check your page’s cache, but I’ve also made a tool that can check it for you: https://webtrainingwheels.com/is-it-cached/

PageSpeed Scores vs. Core Web Vitals

Audience: Beginners

Speed Optimization

PageSpeed scores and Core Web Vitals are both Google metrics for site speed. They are often aligned with each other, meaning that if you have a good PageSpeed score, you should also have good Core Web Vitals. But, since there are some fundamental differences, they can also tell different stories. It’s important to understand how each of them works and how to best consider them for your site.

Cookie Consent and Privacy Plugins for WordPress

Audience: Beginners, Intermediate

WordPress Plugins

Cookie banners are an unavoidable part of our web browsing experience these days. As much as we hate them as users, site owners need them to not only demonstrate to visitors that they have privacy options and to build trust, but to make sure they are complying with a variety of laws.

It’s a tricky world because the average site owner is not a lawyer but it feels like we have to become one to understand what is required of us.

You might think that your site doesn’t require a cookie plugin, but the vast majority will. Common features like Google Analytics (pretty much any Google product in fact), Facebook tracking pixels and more all indicate the need for cookie consent. This article does a good job of breaking this down in more detail. And PrivacyChec ker has some useful articles on their blog.

There are so many options for WordPress plugins that manage cookie consent. Many are freemium, meaning there is a free version with paid upgrades, but I know most site owners, especially of smaller non-monetized sites, won’t want to add yet another subscription to their website maintenance costs.

I’ve tested many of the available plugins and and found that there’s only a few free options worth looking at, along with a couple of Premium.

Speed Optimization Case Study – SBWineLiner

Audience: Beginners, Intermediate

Speed Optimization

This is a case study for SBWineLiner.com which is quite a new site and doesn’t yet get a huge amount of traffic. Core Web Vitals are not yet available so PageSpeed scores and user experience are what I was optimizing for.

The goal for this site was to make the mobile version faster since clients are using the site while on the wine tour and therefore not always with the best reception and connection.

Although the site performed decently, the mobile Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores for most pages were generally not great and had a lot of room for improvement.

What is Page Caching? Explained in Plain English

Audience: Beginners

Speed Optimization

A lot of WordPress site owners have heard about the need to “use a caching plugin”, and may even be using one without really understanding what it’s doing. It can be pretty technical, even for some developers, and a lack of understanding leads to frustration when things go wrong.

I want to try and demystify it a little. When you have a better idea of what’s happening in the background, it’s easier to troubleshoot things.

WP Rocket vs. Perfmatters

Audience: Intermediate

Speed Optimization

There is significant overlap between WP Rocket and Perfmatters, but that doesn’t mean you have to choose one or the other. The differences are important too. You can certainly use both simultaneously as long as you avoid feature duplication. In other cases, depending on your preferences, you may find that it makes sense to use one or the other. Let’s look at the specifics that will influence your decision.