How can I speed up my WordPress site without plugin?/Improving your website’s speed is something you should worry about the most during a technical audit. Generally, users prefer to browse sites that have better page loading speed and there are numerous online tools that offer detailed insights on your website speed performance.
Increasing the speed of a site starts with your WordPress web hosting. It is not much different than the process used for optimizing a website hosted on a shared or a dedicated server. For that reason, you might find some of the tools like Breeze mentioned below as being similar to what you were doing to your shared website.
How To Improving Your Website’s Speed
Use a Good Web Hosting Plan
It really all starts with choosing the right WordPress hosting plan with the right hosting company. Even before talking about speed, you must have a reliable company with solid and reliable hardware to host your website. If your site is unreliable, it doesn’t matter how fast it performs. Visitors will run away and never come back. Do your homework and check out user reviews for hosting companies.
Getting back to speed up your website, most hosting companies, such as Bluehost, offer a range of hosting plans, starting with inexpensive shared hosting and moving up through virtual servers, dedicated servers, and cloud servers. The prices increase as you move up through the different types of hosting, but the number of resources dedicated to your website also increases.
While it is OK, to begin with, shared hosting when you are just starting your site, be sure to regularly track your traffic volume and resource usage so that you can upgrade to a better hosting plan before visitors start noticing your site is sluggish.
Enable Caching
Simply put, caching is the technical term for storing data in a temporary storage area. This improves a site’s performance since a lot of a page’s content is already prepared and available and does not need to be fetched and processed in order to be displayed for a user. It also reduces the load of various system resources on your server.
We recommend you use the caching plugins provided by Bluehost, that are built to work best in that environment. You can find these cache settings on the performance page of the Bluehost plugin or WordPress section of the control panel.
If your site is not a WordPress site, enabling caching is more complex and beyond the scope of this article. In either case, you should discuss caching options with your hosting provider, since they will often have recommendations based on the optimizations they have implemented on their end.
Use Light Weight Theme
There are many shiny and beautiful themes in the WordPress market. But don’t forget, themes with a lot of dynamic content, widgets, slider, sidebar, etc., can cause your hosting server to respond slowly.
Always optimize the WordPress theme or use a lightweight WordPress theme. The default WordPress themes can be enough if you want to run a blogging website. For more features, you can use themes that are built on Bootstrap and Foundation.
The best option here is to use lightweight themes, like WordPress’ default themes. The new Twenty Fifteen theme is always a good way to start off a blog. For a feature-rich website, you can also opt for a theme that uses a good framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. For instance, all themes at ThemeIsle are built on top of Bootstrap, which provides a great way to speed up WordPress.
Control Post Revisions
No doubt, post revision is a great feature in WordPress. But, not every feature is feasible for everyone. There are few users with low disk and database space.
In post revisions, every time you change the content, a new copy of the post is saved in the database rather than deleting the previous one. So that you can always have a chance to revert. It increases the database size, and a large size database can cause many problems.
You can limit the frequency to autosave a post. From the root folder of your WordPress installation, open wp-config file with any file editor and write any of the below code before the code requirements.
Optimize Your WordPress site’s Homepage
Another thing you can do to speed up a WordPress site is to optimize your homepage. Make it look simpler, without clustered content and useless widgets or tools.
Also, don’t show the posts at their full length. You can show only the first paragraph or a specific excerpt from the text. Displaying too many posts on the same page could cause a longer loading time as well.
Things that you can do include
Show excerpts instead of full posts
Reduce the number of posts on the page (I like showing between 5-7)
Remove unnecessary sharing widgets from the home page (include them only in posts)
Remove inactive plugins and widgets that you don’t need
Keep in minimal! Readers are here for content, not 8,000 widgets on the homepage
Reduce Image Sizes
Images are the major contributors to the size increment of a given webpage. The trick is to reduce the size of the images without compromising on the quality.
If you manually optimize the images using Chrome PageSpeed Insights extension or Photoshop or any other tools, the process will take a long time. Fortunately, there are plugins available for just about everything you can think of, including image optimization.
Using any of the above-mentioned plugins on your WordPress site will drastically reduce image sizes, thus improving the speed of your website.
Images bring life to your content and help boost engagement. Researchers have found that using colored visuals makes people 80% more likely to read your content.
However, if your images aren’t optimized, then they could be hurting more than helping. In fact, non-optimized images are one of the most common speed issues that we see on beginner websites.
Before you upload a photo directly from your phone or camera, we recommend that you use photo editing software to optimize your images for the web.
Well, the PNG image format is uncompressed. When you compress an image it loses some information, so an uncompressed image will be higher quality with more detail. The downside is that it’s larger file size, so it takes longer to load.
JPEG, on the other hand, is a compressed file format that slightly reduces image quality, but it’s significantly smaller in size.
So how do we decide which image format to choose?
If our photo or image has a lot of different colors, then we use JPEG.
If it’s a simpler image or we need a transparent image, then we use PNG.
The majority of our images are JPEGs.
Minify JS and CSS files
If you run your website through the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you will probably be notified about minimizing the size of your CSS and JS files. What this means is that by reducing the number of CSS and JS calls and the size of those files, you can improve the site loading speed.
Also, if you know your way around WordPress themes, you can study the guides provided by Google and do some manual fixing. If not, then there are plugins that will help you achieve this goal; the most popular being the Autoptimize that can help in optimizing CSS, JS and even HTML of your WordPress website.
If you test your WordPress website with Google PageSpeed Insights or slow, you’ll be prompt up with a warning to minify JavaScript and CSS files. That means you need to reduce JS and CSS calls to reduce server response time and minify file sizes. By reducing them, you’ll observe site-loading speed becomes much faster than before. This will eventually help you to save bandwidth usage.
Use a CDN
The people who visit your website belong to various locations in the world, and needless to say, the site-loading speed will differ if the visitors are located far away from where your site is hosted. There are many CDN (Content Delivery Networks) that help in keeping the site-loading speed to a minimum for visitors from various countries. A CDN keeps a copy of your website in various data centers located in different places. The primary function of a CDN is to serve the webpage to a visitor from the nearest possible location. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are among the most popular CDN services.
For example, let’s say your web hosting company has its servers in the United States. A visitor who’s also in the United States will generally see faster loading times than a visitor in India.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to speed up loading times for all of your visitors. A CDN is a network made up of servers all around the world. Each server will store “static” files used to make up your website. These static files include unchanging files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, unlike your WordPress pages which are “dynamic” as explained above.
When you use a CDN, every time a user visits your website they are served those static files from whichever server is closest to them. Your own web hosting server will also be faster since the CDN is doing a lot of the work
Enable GZIP compression
Compressing files on your local computer can save a lot of disk space. Similarly, for the web, we can use GZIP compression. This maneuver will dramatically reduce the bandwidth usage and the time it takes to gain access to your website. GZIP compresses various files so that whenever a visitor tries to access your website; their browser will first have to unzip the website. This process brings down the bandwidth usage to a considerable extent.
You can use either a plugin like the PageSpeed Ninja, which enables GZIP compression or add the following codes in your .htaccess file.
Deleting unwanted data from your database will keep its size to a minimum and also helps in reducing the size of your backups. It is also necessary to delete spam comments, fake users, old drafts of your content and maybe even unwanted plugins as well as themes. All of this will reduce the size of your databases and web files, and thus speed up WordPress – your WordPress.
Deactivate or Uninstall Plugins
Keeping unwanted plugins on your WordPress websites will add a tremendous amount of junk to your web files. Moreover, it will also increase the size of your backup and put an overwhelming amount of load on your server resources while backup files are being generated. It is better to get rid of the plugins that you don’t use and also look for alternate methods to use third-party services for automating or scheduling tasks (like sharing of your latest posts to social media).
IFTTT or Zapier are two web services that help in automating such tasks and reduce the burden on your website and server resources.
Keep External Scripts to a Minimum
The usage of external scripts on your web pages adds a big chunk of data to your total loading time. Thus, it is best to use a low number of scripts, including only the essentials such as tracking tools (like Google Analytics) or commenting systems (like Disqus).
Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are two core WordPress components that alert you whenever your blog or page receives a link. It might sound useful, but you also have things such as Google Webmaster Tools and other services to check the links of your website.
Keeping pingbacks and trackbacks on can also put an undesirable amount of strain on your server resources. This is so because whenever anyone tries to link up to your site, it generates requests from WordPress back and forth. This functionality is also widely abused when targeting a website with DDoS attacks.
Use Latest PHP Version
WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language. It is a server-side language, which means it is installed and runs on your hosting server.
All good WordPress hosting companies use the most stable PHP version on their servers. However, it is possible that your hosting company is running a slightly older PHP version.
The newer PHP 7 is two times faster than its predecessors. That’s a huge performance boost that your website must take advantage of.
Upon activation, the plugin will show your PHP version in the footer area of your WordPress admin dashboard.
If your website is using a version lower than PHP 7, then ask your hosting provider to update it for you. If they are unable to do so, then it is time to find a new WordPress hosting company. That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to improve WordPress speed and performance.
Go ahead and try out these techniques. Don’t forget to test your website speed before and after implementing these best practices. You’ll be surprised these changes will boost your WordPress performance.
Decrease Server Requests
A server request happens every time your browser asks some type of resource from your server. This can be a file like a style sheet, a script or an image.
The more server requests necessary to complete loading your site, the longer it will take. As a consequence, requests should be as few as possible. Here are a few things you can do to reduce them to a minimum:
Lower the number of posts shown on a page
Only show post excerpts, no full posts on your archive pages (find the option under Settings > Reading)
Split longer posts into pages it’s easy
If you get a lot of comments, break them up into several pages (Settings > Discussion)
Reduce the number of images and other elements on your page
Uninstall unnecessary plugins, especially slower ones (find them with this plugin)
Deactivate plugins you are not using permanently
Enable lazy loading to delay loading images until they are actually visible on the page
Reduce external resources such as fonts if they aren’t necessary
Turn off Pingbacks and Trackbacks
By default, WordPress interacts with other blogs that are equipped with pingbacks and trackbacks.
Every time another blog mentions you, it notifies your site, which in turn updates data on the post. Turning this off will not destroy the backlinks to your site, just the setting that generates a lot of work for your site.
Look for Inactive Plugins or for Plugins that Don’t Work Properly
Another solution to speed up a WordPress site is by verifying if your current plugins are working correctly. Everyone uses various plugins and tools for various needs. They sometimes cause lag in your website, rendering it slow to load. You might give it a try and see how fast they are working.
To do the tests, you can get another plugin. It’s called the Query Monitor. This plugin is free and once installed, it will report any performance problems with your website. If there are plugins that slow down your website, remove them or try to find alternatives. Also, keeping a large number of active plugins will affect your WordPress site speed as well.
Testing and Digging Deeper
There is really a lot more to site optimization than what we’ve discussed here. However, these are five steps that will give you the most bang for the buck. For those of you who want to learn more and/or further optimize your website, I’d like to leave you with a list of three popular performance analysis sites (all with very useful free versions). These tools will run a series of tests on your site to identify performance issues and direct you as to how to correct them.
Disable Hotlinking and Leaching of Your Content
If you’re creating quality content on your WordPress site, then the sad truth is that it’ll probably get stolen sooner or later.
One way this happens is when other websites serve your images directly from their URLs on your website, instead of uploading them to their own servers. In effect, they’re stealing your web hosting bandwidth, and you don’t get any traffic to show for it.
Simply add this code to your .htaccess file to block hotlinking of images from your WordPress site.
[stextbox id=’grey’]
1
2
3
4
5
6
#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden orcustom image option
Note: Don’t forget to change wpbeginner.com with your own domain.
You may also want to check our article showing 4 ways to prevent image theft in WordPress. Some content scraping websites automatically create posts by stealing your content from your RSS feed. You can check out our guide on preventing blog content scraping in WordPress for ways to deal with automated content theft.
What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?
Your speed test report will likely have multiple recommendations for improvement. However, most of that is technical jargon which is hard for beginners to understand.
Learning what slows down your website is the key to improving performance and making smarter long-term decisions.
The primary causes of a slow WordPress website are:
Web Hosting – When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed.
WordPress Configuration – If your WordPress site is not serving cached pages, then it will overload your server thus causing your website to be slow or crash entirely.
Page Size – Mainly images that aren’t optimized for the web.
Bad Plugins – If you’re using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website.
External scripts – External scripts such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance.
Now that you know what slows down your WordPress website, let’s take a look at how to speed up your WordPress website.
Server and Hosting Technology
At the very bottom of how quickly a page load is a server it is hosted on, it’s location and your WordPress hosting plan. Let’s start with the latter.
Generally, there are three different types of hosting:
Shared hosting — That means your site lies on the same server as a number of other websites and needs to share its resources (processing power, RAM) with everyone else. This can lead to “bad neighbor” effects where one site is hogging the majority of resources and downtimes due to overload.
Virtual private server (VPS) — With this type of hosting, you usually have fewer sites on the same server. In addition, resources are allocated evenly across all sites present without the option to exceed them.
Dedicated server — You have one server just for you. There are no resources to share, everything is at the disposal of just your site.
In addition to the type of hosting, the technology used in the servers (both hardware and software) is also important. For example, does your server use the latest versions of PHP, HTML and other web techs? How about SSD hard drives? How much memory does it have? All that factors into how quickly it can serve up your website files.
How can I make my website load faster?/Improving your website’s speed is something you should worry about the most during a technical audit. Generally, users prefer to browse sites that have better page loading speed and there are numerous online tools that offer detailed insights on your website speed performance.
Increasing the speed of a site starts with your WordPress web hosting. It is not much different than the process used for optimizing a website hosted on a shared or a dedicated server. For that reason, you might find some of the tools like Breeze mentioned below as being similar to what you were doing to your shared website.
How To Improving Your Website’s Speed
Use a Good Web Hosting Plan
It really all starts with choosing the right WordPress hosting plan with the right hosting company. Even before talking about speed, you must have a reliable company with solid and reliable hardware to host your website. If your site is unreliable, it doesn’t matter how fast it performs. Visitors will run away and never come back. Do your homework and check out user reviews for hosting companies.
Getting back to speed up your website, most hosting companies, such as Bluehost, offer a range of hosting plans, starting with inexpensive shared hosting and moving up through virtual servers, dedicated servers, and cloud servers. The prices increase as you move up through the different types of hosting, but the number of resources dedicated to your website also increases.
While it is OK, to begin with, shared hosting when you are just starting your site, be sure to regularly track your traffic volume and resource usage so that you can upgrade to a better hosting plan before visitors start noticing your site is sluggish.
Enable Caching
Simply put, caching is the technical term for storing data in a temporary storage area. This improves a site’s performance since a lot of a page’s content is already prepared and available and does not need to be fetched and processed in order to be displayed for a user. It also reduces the load of various system resources on your server.
We recommend you use the caching plugins provided by Bluehost, that are built to work best in that environment. You can find these cache settings on the performance page of the Bluehost plugin or WordPress section of the control panel.
If your site is not a WordPress site, enabling caching is more complex and beyond the scope of this article. In either case, you should discuss caching options with your hosting provider, since they will often have recommendations based on the optimizations they have implemented on their end.
Use Light Weight Theme
There are many shiny and beautiful themes in the WordPress market. But don’t forget, themes with a lot of dynamic content, widgets, slider, sidebar, etc., can cause your hosting server to respond slowly.
Always optimize the WordPress theme or use a lightweight WordPress theme. The default WordPress themes can be enough if you want to run a blogging website. For more features, you can use themes that are built on Bootstrap and Foundation.
The best option here is to use lightweight themes, like WordPress’ default themes. The new Twenty Fifteen theme is always a good way to start off a blog. For a feature-rich website, you can also opt for a theme that uses a good framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. For instance, all themes at ThemeIsle are built on top of Bootstrap, which provides a great way to speed up WordPress.
Control Post Revisions
No doubt, post revision is a great feature in WordPress. But, not every feature is feasible for everyone. There are few users with low disk and database space.
In post revisions, every time you change the content, a new copy of the post is saved in the database rather than deleting the previous one. So that you can always have a chance to revert. It increases the database size, and a large size database can cause many problems.
You can limit the frequency to autosave a post. From the root folder of your WordPress installation, open wp-config file with any file editor and write any of the below code before the code requirements.
Optimize Your WordPress site’s Homepage
Another thing you can do to speed up a WordPress site is to optimize your homepage. Make it look simpler, without clustered content and useless widgets or tools.
Also, don’t show the posts at their full length. You can show only the first paragraph or a specific excerpt from the text. Displaying too many posts on the same page could cause a longer loading time as well.
Things that you can do include
Show excerpts instead of full posts
Reduce the number of posts on the page (I like showing between 5-7)
Remove unnecessary sharing widgets from the home page (include them only in posts)
Remove inactive plugins and widgets that you don’t need
Keep in minimal! Readers are here for content, not 8,000 widgets on the homepage
Reduce Image Sizes
Images are the major contributors to the size increment of a given webpage. The trick is to reduce the size of the images without compromising on the quality.
If you manually optimize the images using Chrome PageSpeed Insights extension or Photoshop or any other tools, the process will take a long time. Fortunately, there are plugins available for just about everything you can think of, including image optimization.
Using any of the above-mentioned plugins on your WordPress site will drastically reduce image sizes, thus improving the speed of your website.
Images bring life to your content and help boost engagement. Researchers have found that using colored visuals makes people 80% more likely to read your content.
However, if your images aren’t optimized, then they could be hurting more than helping. In fact, non-optimized images are one of the most common speed issues that we see on beginner websites.
Before you upload a photo directly from your phone or camera, we recommend that you use photo editing software to optimize your images for the web.
Well, the PNG image format is uncompressed. When you compress an image it loses some information, so an uncompressed image will be higher quality with more detail. The downside is that it’s larger file size, so it takes longer to load.
JPEG, on the other hand, is a compressed file format that slightly reduces image quality, but it’s significantly smaller in size.
So how do we decide which image format to choose?
If our photo or image has a lot of different colors, then we use JPEG.
If it’s a simpler image or we need a transparent image, then we use PNG.
The majority of our images are JPEGs.
Minify JS and CSS files
If you run your website through the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you will probably be notified about minimizing the size of your CSS and JS files. What this means is that by reducing the number of CSS and JS calls and the size of those files, you can improve the site loading speed.
Also, if you know your way around WordPress themes, you can study the guides provided by Google and do some manual fixing. If not, then there are plugins that will help you achieve this goal; the most popular being the Autoptimize that can help in optimizing CSS, JS and even HTML of your WordPress website.
If you test your WordPress website with Google PageSpeed Insights or slow, you’ll be prompt up with a warning to minify JavaScript and CSS files. That means you need to reduce JS and CSS calls to reduce server response time and minify file sizes. By reducing them, you’ll observe site-loading speed becomes much faster than before. This will eventually help you to save bandwidth usage.
Use a CDN
The people who visit your website belong to various locations in the world, and needless to say, the site-loading speed will differ if the visitors are located far away from where your site is hosted. There are many CDN (Content Delivery Networks) that help in keeping the site-loading speed to a minimum for visitors from various countries. A CDN keeps a copy of your website in various data centers located in different places. The primary function of a CDN is to serve the webpage to a visitor from the nearest possible location. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are among the most popular CDN services.
For example, let’s say your web hosting company has its servers in the United States. A visitor who’s also in the United States will generally see faster loading times than a visitor in India.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to speed up loading times for all of your visitors. A CDN is a network made up of servers all around the world. Each server will store “static” files used to make up your website. These static files include unchanging files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, unlike your WordPress pages which are “dynamic” as explained above.
When you use a CDN, every time a user visits your website they are served those static files from whichever server is closest to them. Your own web hosting server will also be faster since the CDN is doing a lot of the work
Enable GZIP compression
Compressing files on your local computer can save a lot of disk space. Similarly, for the web, we can use GZIP compression. This maneuver will dramatically reduce the bandwidth usage and the time it takes to gain access to your website. GZIP compresses various files so that whenever a visitor tries to access your website; their browser will first have to unzip the website. This process brings down the bandwidth usage to a considerable extent.
You can use either a plugin like the PageSpeed Ninja, which enables GZIP compression or add the following codes in your .htaccess file.
Deleting unwanted data from your database will keep its size to a minimum and also helps in reducing the size of your backups. It is also necessary to delete spam comments, fake users, old drafts of your content and maybe even unwanted plugins as well as themes. All of this will reduce the size of your databases and web files, and thus speed up WordPress – your WordPress.
Deactivate or Uninstall Plugins
Keeping unwanted plugins on your WordPress websites will add a tremendous amount of junk to your web files. Moreover, it will also increase the size of your backup and put an overwhelming amount of load on your server resources while backup files are being generated. It is better to get rid of the plugins that you don’t use and also look for alternate methods to use third-party services for automating or scheduling tasks (like sharing of your latest posts to social media).
IFTTT or Zapier are two web services that help in automating such tasks and reduce the burden on your website and server resources.
Keep External Scripts to a Minimum
The usage of external scripts on your web pages adds a big chunk of data to your total loading time. Thus, it is best to use a low number of scripts, including only the essentials such as tracking tools (like Google Analytics) or commenting systems (like Disqus).
Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are two core WordPress components that alert you whenever your blog or page receives a link. It might sound useful, but you also have things such as Google Webmaster Tools and other services to check the links of your website.
Keeping pingbacks and trackbacks on can also put an undesirable amount of strain on your server resources. This is so because whenever anyone tries to link up to your site, it generates requests from WordPress back and forth. This functionality is also widely abused when targeting a website with DDoS attacks.
Use Latest PHP Version
WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language. It is a server-side language, which means it is installed and runs on your hosting server.
All good WordPress hosting companies use the most stable PHP version on their servers. However, it is possible that your hosting company is running a slightly older PHP version.
The newer PHP 7 is two times faster than its predecessors. That’s a huge performance boost that your website must take advantage of.
Upon activation, the plugin will show your PHP version in the footer area of your WordPress admin dashboard.
If your website is using a version lower than PHP 7, then ask your hosting provider to update it for you. If they are unable to do so, then it is time to find a new WordPress hosting company. That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to improve WordPress speed and performance.
Go ahead and try out these techniques. Don’t forget to test your website speed before and after implementing these best practices. You’ll be surprised these changes will boost your WordPress performance.
Decrease Server Requests
A server request happens every time your browser asks some type of resource from your server. This can be a file like a style sheet, a script or an image.
The more server requests necessary to complete loading your site, the longer it will take. As a consequence, requests should be as few as possible. Here are a few things you can do to reduce them to a minimum:
Lower the number of posts shown on a page
Only show post excerpts, no full posts on your archive pages (find the option under Settings > Reading)
Split longer posts into pages it’s easy
If you get a lot of comments, break them up into several pages (Settings > Discussion)
Reduce the number of images and other elements on your page
Uninstall unnecessary plugins, especially slower ones (find them with this plugin)
Deactivate plugins you are not using permanently
Enable lazy loading to delay loading images until they are actually visible on the page
Reduce external resources such as fonts if they aren’t necessary
Turn off Pingbacks and Trackbacks
By default, WordPress interacts with other blogs that are equipped with pingbacks and trackbacks.
Every time another blog mentions you, it notifies your site, which in turn updates data on the post. Turning this off will not destroy the backlinks to your site, just the setting that generates a lot of work for your site.
Look for Inactive Plugins or for Plugins that Don’t Work Properly
Another solution to speed up a WordPress site is by verifying if your current plugins are working correctly. Everyone uses various plugins and tools for various needs. They sometimes cause lag in your website, rendering it slow to load. You might give it a try and see how fast they are working.
To do the tests, you can get another plugin. It’s called the Query Monitor. This plugin is free and once installed, it will report any performance problems with your website. If there are plugins that slow down your website, remove them or try to find alternatives. Also, keeping a large number of active plugins will affect your WordPress site speed as well.
Testing and Digging Deeper
There is really a lot more to site optimization than what we’ve discussed here. However, these are five steps that will give you the most bang for the buck. For those of you who want to learn more and/or further optimize your website, I’d like to leave you with a list of three popular performance analysis sites (all with very useful free versions). These tools will run a series of tests on your site to identify performance issues and direct you as to how to correct them.
Disable Hotlinking and Leaching of Your Content
If you’re creating quality content on your WordPress site, then the sad truth is that it’ll probably get stolen sooner or later.
One way this happens is when other websites serve your images directly from their URLs on your website, instead of uploading them to their own servers. In effect, they’re stealing your web hosting bandwidth, and you don’t get any traffic to show for it.
Simply add this code to your .htaccess file to block hotlinking of images from your WordPress site.
[stextbox id=’grey’]
1
2
3
4
5
6
#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden orcustom image option
Note: Don’t forget to change wpbeginner.com with your own domain.
You may also want to check our article showing 4 ways to prevent image theft in WordPress. Some content scraping websites automatically create posts by stealing your content from your RSS feed. You can check out our guide on preventing blog content scraping in WordPress for ways to deal with automated content theft.
What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?
Your speed test report will likely have multiple recommendations for improvement. However, most of that is technical jargon which is hard for beginners to understand.
Learning what slows down your website is the key to improving performance and making smarter long-term decisions.
The primary causes of a slow WordPress website are:
Web Hosting – When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed.
WordPress Configuration – If your WordPress site is not serving cached pages, then it will overload your server thus causing your website to be slow or crash entirely.
Page Size – Mainly images that aren’t optimized for the web.
Bad Plugins – If you’re using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website.
External scripts – External scripts such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance.
Now that you know what slows down your WordPress website, let’s take a look at how to speed up your WordPress website.
Server and Hosting Technology
At the very bottom of how quickly a page load is a server it is hosted on, it’s location and your WordPress hosting plan. Let’s start with the latter.
Generally, there are three different types of hosting:
Shared hosting — That means your site lies on the same server as a number of other websites and needs to share its resources (processing power, RAM) with everyone else. This can lead to “bad neighbor” effects where one site is hogging the majority of resources and downtimes due to overload.
Virtual private server (VPS) — With this type of hosting, you usually have fewer sites on the same server. In addition, resources are allocated evenly across all sites present without the option to exceed them.
Dedicated server — You have one server just for you. There are no resources to share, everything is at the disposal of just your site.
In addition to the type of hosting, the technology used in the servers (both hardware and software) is also important. For example, does your server use the latest versions of PHP, HTML and other web techs? How about SSD hard drives? How much memory does it have? All that factors into how quickly it can serve up your website files.
How can I increase my website speed on mobile?/Improving your website’s speed is something you should worry about the most during a technical audit. Generally, users prefer to browse sites that have better page loading speed and there are numerous online tools that offer detailed insights on your website speed performance.
Increasing the speed of a site starts with your WordPress web hosting. It is not much different than the process used for optimizing a website hosted on a shared or a dedicated server. For that reason, you might find some of the tools like Breeze mentioned below as being similar to what you were doing to your shared website.
How To Improving Your Website’s Speed
Use a Good Web Hosting Plan
It really all starts with choosing the right WordPress hosting plan with the right hosting company. Even before talking about speed, you must have a reliable company with solid and reliable hardware to host your website. If your site is unreliable, it doesn’t matter how fast it performs. Visitors will run away and never come back. Do your homework and check out user reviews for hosting companies.
Getting back to speed up your website, most hosting companies, such as Bluehost, offer a range of hosting plans, starting with inexpensive shared hosting and moving up through virtual servers, dedicated servers, and cloud servers. The prices increase as you move up through the different types of hosting, but the number of resources dedicated to your website also increases.
While it is OK, to begin with, shared hosting when you are just starting your site, be sure to regularly track your traffic volume and resource usage so that you can upgrade to a better hosting plan before visitors start noticing your site is sluggish.
Enable Caching
Simply put, caching is the technical term for storing data in a temporary storage area. This improves a site’s performance since a lot of a page’s content is already prepared and available and does not need to be fetched and processed in order to be displayed for a user. It also reduces the load of various system resources on your server.
We recommend you use the caching plugins provided by Bluehost, that are built to work best in that environment. You can find these cache settings on the performance page of the Bluehost plugin or WordPress section of the control panel.
If your site is not a WordPress site, enabling caching is more complex and beyond the scope of this article. In either case, you should discuss caching options with your hosting provider, since they will often have recommendations based on the optimizations they have implemented on their end.
Use Light Weight Theme
There are many shiny and beautiful themes in the WordPress market. But don’t forget, themes with a lot of dynamic content, widgets, slider, sidebar, etc., can cause your hosting server to respond slowly.
Always optimize the WordPress theme or use a lightweight WordPress theme. The default WordPress themes can be enough if you want to run a blogging website. For more features, you can use themes that are built on Bootstrap and Foundation.
The best option here is to use lightweight themes, like WordPress’ default themes. The new Twenty Fifteen theme is always a good way to start off a blog. For a feature-rich website, you can also opt for a theme that uses a good framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. For instance, all themes at ThemeIsle are built on top of Bootstrap, which provides a great way to speed up WordPress.
Control Post Revisions
No doubt, post revision is a great feature in WordPress. But, not every feature is feasible for everyone. There are few users with low disk and database space.
In post revisions, every time you change the content, a new copy of the post is saved in the database rather than deleting the previous one. So that you can always have a chance to revert. It increases the database size, and a large size database can cause many problems.
You can limit the frequency to autosave a post. From the root folder of your WordPress installation, open wp-config file with any file editor and write any of the below code before the code requirements.
Optimize Your WordPress site’s Homepage
Another thing you can do to speed up a WordPress site is to optimize your homepage. Make it look simpler, without clustered content and useless widgets or tools.
Also, don’t show the posts at their full length. You can show only the first paragraph or a specific excerpt from the text. Displaying too many posts on the same page could cause a longer loading time as well.
Things that you can do include
Show excerpts instead of full posts
Reduce the number of posts on the page (I like showing between 5-7)
Remove unnecessary sharing widgets from the home page (include them only in posts)
Remove inactive plugins and widgets that you don’t need
Keep in minimal! Readers are here for content, not 8,000 widgets on the homepage
Reduce Image Sizes
Images are the major contributors to the size increment of a given webpage. The trick is to reduce the size of the images without compromising on the quality.
If you manually optimize the images using Chrome PageSpeed Insights extension or Photoshop or any other tools, the process will take a long time. Fortunately, there are plugins available for just about everything you can think of, including image optimization.
Using any of the above-mentioned plugins on your WordPress site will drastically reduce image sizes, thus improving the speed of your website.
Images bring life to your content and help boost engagement. Researchers have found that using colored visuals makes people 80% more likely to read your content.
However, if your images aren’t optimized, then they could be hurting more than helping. In fact, non-optimized images are one of the most common speed issues that we see on beginner websites.
Before you upload a photo directly from your phone or camera, we recommend that you use photo editing software to optimize your images for the web.
Well, the PNG image format is uncompressed. When you compress an image it loses some information, so an uncompressed image will be higher quality with more detail. The downside is that it’s larger file size, so it takes longer to load.
JPEG, on the other hand, is a compressed file format that slightly reduces image quality, but it’s significantly smaller in size.
So how do we decide which image format to choose?
If our photo or image has a lot of different colors, then we use JPEG.
If it’s a simpler image or we need a transparent image, then we use PNG.
The majority of our images are JPEGs.
Minify JS and CSS files
If you run your website through the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you will probably be notified about minimizing the size of your CSS and JS files. What this means is that by reducing the number of CSS and JS calls and the size of those files, you can improve the site loading speed.
Also, if you know your way around WordPress themes, you can study the guides provided by Google and do some manual fixing. If not, then there are plugins that will help you achieve this goal; the most popular being the Autoptimize that can help in optimizing CSS, JS and even HTML of your WordPress website.
If you test your WordPress website with Google PageSpeed Insights or slow, you’ll be prompt up with a warning to minify JavaScript and CSS files. That means you need to reduce JS and CSS calls to reduce server response time and minify file sizes. By reducing them, you’ll observe site-loading speed becomes much faster than before. This will eventually help you to save bandwidth usage.
Use a CDN
The people who visit your website belong to various locations in the world, and needless to say, the site-loading speed will differ if the visitors are located far away from where your site is hosted. There are many CDN (Content Delivery Networks) that help in keeping the site-loading speed to a minimum for visitors from various countries. A CDN keeps a copy of your website in various data centers located in different places. The primary function of a CDN is to serve the webpage to a visitor from the nearest possible location. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are among the most popular CDN services.
For example, let’s say your web hosting company has its servers in the United States. A visitor who’s also in the United States will generally see faster loading times than a visitor in India.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to speed up loading times for all of your visitors. A CDN is a network made up of servers all around the world. Each server will store “static” files used to make up your website. These static files include unchanging files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, unlike your WordPress pages which are “dynamic” as explained above.
When you use a CDN, every time a user visits your website they are served those static files from whichever server is closest to them. Your own web hosting server will also be faster since the CDN is doing a lot of the work
Enable GZIP compression
Compressing files on your local computer can save a lot of disk space. Similarly, for the web, we can use GZIP compression. This maneuver will dramatically reduce the bandwidth usage and the time it takes to gain access to your website. GZIP compresses various files so that whenever a visitor tries to access your website; their browser will first have to unzip the website. This process brings down the bandwidth usage to a considerable extent.
You can use either a plugin like the PageSpeed Ninja, which enables GZIP compression or add the following codes in your .htaccess file.
Deleting unwanted data from your database will keep its size to a minimum and also helps in reducing the size of your backups. It is also necessary to delete spam comments, fake users, old drafts of your content and maybe even unwanted plugins as well as themes. All of this will reduce the size of your databases and web files, and thus speed up WordPress – your WordPress.
Deactivate or Uninstall Plugins
Keeping unwanted plugins on your WordPress websites will add a tremendous amount of junk to your web files. Moreover, it will also increase the size of your backup and put an overwhelming amount of load on your server resources while backup files are being generated. It is better to get rid of the plugins that you don’t use and also look for alternate methods to use third-party services for automating or scheduling tasks (like sharing of your latest posts to social media).
IFTTT or Zapier are two web services that help in automating such tasks and reduce the burden on your website and server resources.
Keep External Scripts to a Minimum
The usage of external scripts on your web pages adds a big chunk of data to your total loading time. Thus, it is best to use a low number of scripts, including only the essentials such as tracking tools (like Google Analytics) or commenting systems (like Disqus).
Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are two core WordPress components that alert you whenever your blog or page receives a link. It might sound useful, but you also have things such as Google Webmaster Tools and other services to check the links of your website.
Keeping pingbacks and trackbacks on can also put an undesirable amount of strain on your server resources. This is so because whenever anyone tries to link up to your site, it generates requests from WordPress back and forth. This functionality is also widely abused when targeting a website with DDoS attacks.
Use Latest PHP Version
WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language. It is a server-side language, which means it is installed and runs on your hosting server.
All good WordPress hosting companies use the most stable PHP version on their servers. However, it is possible that your hosting company is running a slightly older PHP version.
The newer PHP 7 is two times faster than its predecessors. That’s a huge performance boost that your website must take advantage of.
Upon activation, the plugin will show your PHP version in the footer area of your WordPress admin dashboard.
If your website is using a version lower than PHP 7, then ask your hosting provider to update it for you. If they are unable to do so, then it is time to find a new WordPress hosting company. That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to improve WordPress speed and performance.
Go ahead and try out these techniques. Don’t forget to test your website speed before and after implementing these best practices. You’ll be surprised these changes will boost your WordPress performance.
Decrease Server Requests
A server request happens every time your browser asks some type of resource from your server. This can be a file like a style sheet, a script or an image.
The more server requests necessary to complete loading your site, the longer it will take. As a consequence, requests should be as few as possible. Here are a few things you can do to reduce them to a minimum:
Lower the number of posts shown on a page
Only show post excerpts, no full posts on your archive pages (find the option under Settings > Reading)
Split longer posts into pages it’s easy
If you get a lot of comments, break them up into several pages (Settings > Discussion)
Reduce the number of images and other elements on your page
Uninstall unnecessary plugins, especially slower ones (find them with this plugin)
Deactivate plugins you are not using permanently
Enable lazy loading to delay loading images until they are actually visible on the page
Reduce external resources such as fonts if they aren’t necessary
Turn off Pingbacks and Trackbacks
By default, WordPress interacts with other blogs that are equipped with pingbacks and trackbacks.
Every time another blog mentions you, it notifies your site, which in turn updates data on the post. Turning this off will not destroy the backlinks to your site, just the setting that generates a lot of work for your site.
Look for Inactive Plugins or for Plugins that Don’t Work Properly
Another solution to speed up a WordPress site is by verifying if your current plugins are working correctly. Everyone uses various plugins and tools for various needs. They sometimes cause lag in your website, rendering it slow to load. You might give it a try and see how fast they are working.
To do the tests, you can get another plugin. It’s called the Query Monitor. This plugin is free and once installed, it will report any performance problems with your website. If there are plugins that slow down your website, remove them or try to find alternatives. Also, keeping a large number of active plugins will affect your WordPress site speed as well.
Testing and Digging Deeper
There is really a lot more to site optimization than what we’ve discussed here. However, these are five steps that will give you the most bang for the buck. For those of you who want to learn more and/or further optimize your website, I’d like to leave you with a list of three popular performance analysis sites (all with very useful free versions). These tools will run a series of tests on your site to identify performance issues and direct you as to how to correct them.
Disable Hotlinking and Leaching of Your Content
If you’re creating quality content on your WordPress site, then the sad truth is that it’ll probably get stolen sooner or later.
One way this happens is when other websites serve your images directly from their URLs on your website, instead of uploading them to their own servers. In effect, they’re stealing your web hosting bandwidth, and you don’t get any traffic to show for it.
Simply add this code to your .htaccess file to block hotlinking of images from your WordPress site.
[stextbox id=’grey’]
1
2
3
4
5
6
#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden orcustom image option
Note: Don’t forget to change wpbeginner.com with your own domain.
You may also want to check our article showing 4 ways to prevent image theft in WordPress. Some content scraping websites automatically create posts by stealing your content from your RSS feed. You can check out our guide on preventing blog content scraping in WordPress for ways to deal with automated content theft.
What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?
Your speed test report will likely have multiple recommendations for improvement. However, most of that is technical jargon which is hard for beginners to understand.
Learning what slows down your website is the key to improving performance and making smarter long-term decisions.
The primary causes of a slow WordPress website are:
Web Hosting – When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed.
WordPress Configuration – If your WordPress site is not serving cached pages, then it will overload your server thus causing your website to be slow or crash entirely.
Page Size – Mainly images that aren’t optimized for the web.
Bad Plugins – If you’re using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website.
External scripts – External scripts such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance.
Now that you know what slows down your WordPress website, let’s take a look at how to speed up your WordPress website.
Server and Hosting Technology
At the very bottom of how quickly a page load is a server it is hosted on, it’s location and your WordPress hosting plan. Let’s start with the latter.
Generally, there are three different types of hosting:
Shared hosting — That means your site lies on the same server as a number of other websites and needs to share its resources (processing power, RAM) with everyone else. This can lead to “bad neighbor” effects where one site is hogging the majority of resources and downtimes due to overload.
Virtual private server (VPS) — With this type of hosting, you usually have fewer sites on the same server. In addition, resources are allocated evenly across all sites present without the option to exceed them.
Dedicated server — You have one server just for you. There are no resources to share, everything is at the disposal of just your site.
In addition to the type of hosting, the technology used in the servers (both hardware and software) is also important. For example, does your server use the latest versions of PHP, HTML and other web techs? How about SSD hard drives? How much memory does it have? All that factors into how quickly it can serve up your website files.
How can I make my website load faster?/Improving your website’s speed is something you should worry about the most during a technical audit. Generally, users prefer to browse sites that have better page loading speed and there are numerous online tools that offer detailed insights on your website speed performance.
Increasing the speed of a site starts with your WordPress web hosting. It is not much different than the process used for optimizing a website hosted on a shared or a dedicated server. For that reason, you might find some of the tools like Breeze mentioned below as being similar to what you were doing to your shared website.
How To Improving Your Website’s Speed
Use a Good Web Hosting Plan
It really all starts with choosing the right WordPress hosting plan with the right hosting company. Even before talking about speed, you must have a reliable company with solid and reliable hardware to host your website. If your site is unreliable, it doesn’t matter how fast it performs. Visitors will run away and never come back. Do your homework and check out user reviews for hosting companies.
Getting back to speed up your website, most hosting companies, such as Bluehost, offer a range of hosting plans, starting with inexpensive shared hosting and moving up through virtual servers, dedicated servers, and cloud servers. The prices increase as you move up through the different types of hosting, but the number of resources dedicated to your website also increases.
While it is OK, to begin with, shared hosting when you are just starting your site, be sure to regularly track your traffic volume and resource usage so that you can upgrade to a better hosting plan before visitors start noticing your site is sluggish.
Enable Caching
Simply put, caching is the technical term for storing data in a temporary storage area. This improves a site’s performance since a lot of a page’s content is already prepared and available and does not need to be fetched and processed in order to be displayed for a user. It also reduces the load of various system resources on your server.
We recommend you use the caching plugins provided by Bluehost, that are built to work best in that environment. You can find these cache settings on the performance page of the Bluehost plugin or WordPress section of the control panel.
If your site is not a WordPress site, enabling caching is more complex and beyond the scope of this article. In either case, you should discuss caching options with your hosting provider, since they will often have recommendations based on the optimizations they have implemented on their end.
Use Light Weight Theme
There are many shiny and beautiful themes in the WordPress market. But don’t forget, themes with a lot of dynamic content, widgets, slider, sidebar, etc., can cause your hosting server to respond slowly.
Always optimize the WordPress theme or use a lightweight WordPress theme. The default WordPress themes can be enough if you want to run a blogging website. For more features, you can use themes that are built on Bootstrap and Foundation.
The best option here is to use lightweight themes, like WordPress’ default themes. The new Twenty Fifteen theme is always a good way to start off a blog. For a feature-rich website, you can also opt for a theme that uses a good framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. For instance, all themes at ThemeIsle are built on top of Bootstrap, which provides a great way to speed up WordPress.
Control Post Revisions
No doubt, post revision is a great feature in WordPress. But, not every feature is feasible for everyone. There are few users with low disk and database space.
In post revisions, every time you change the content, a new copy of the post is saved in the database rather than deleting the previous one. So that you can always have a chance to revert. It increases the database size, and a large size database can cause many problems.
You can limit the frequency to autosave a post. From the root folder of your WordPress installation, open wp-config file with any file editor and write any of the below code before the code requirements.
Optimize Your WordPress site’s Homepage
Another thing you can do to speed up a WordPress site is to optimize your homepage. Make it look simpler, without clustered content and useless widgets or tools.
Also, don’t show the posts at their full length. You can show only the first paragraph or a specific excerpt from the text. Displaying too many posts on the same page could cause a longer loading time as well.
Things that you can do include
Show excerpts instead of full posts
Reduce the number of posts on the page (I like showing between 5-7)
Remove unnecessary sharing widgets from the home page (include them only in posts)
Remove inactive plugins and widgets that you don’t need
Keep in minimal! Readers are here for content, not 8,000 widgets on the homepage
Reduce Image Sizes
Images are the major contributors to the size increment of a given webpage. The trick is to reduce the size of the images without compromising on the quality.
If you manually optimize the images using Chrome PageSpeed Insights extension or Photoshop or any other tools, the process will take a long time. Fortunately, there are plugins available for just about everything you can think of, including image optimization.
Using any of the above-mentioned plugins on your WordPress site will drastically reduce image sizes, thus improving the speed of your website.
Images bring life to your content and help boost engagement. Researchers have found that using colored visuals makes people 80% more likely to read your content.
However, if your images aren’t optimized, then they could be hurting more than helping. In fact, non-optimized images are one of the most common speed issues that we see on beginner websites.
Before you upload a photo directly from your phone or camera, we recommend that you use photo editing software to optimize your images for the web.
Well, the PNG image format is uncompressed. When you compress an image it loses some information, so an uncompressed image will be higher quality with more detail. The downside is that it’s larger file size, so it takes longer to load.
JPEG, on the other hand, is a compressed file format that slightly reduces image quality, but it’s significantly smaller in size.
So how do we decide which image format to choose?
If our photo or image has a lot of different colors, then we use JPEG.
If it’s a simpler image or we need a transparent image, then we use PNG.
The majority of our images are JPEGs.
Minify JS and CSS files
If you run your website through the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you will probably be notified about minimizing the size of your CSS and JS files. What this means is that by reducing the number of CSS and JS calls and the size of those files, you can improve the site loading speed.
Also, if you know your way around WordPress themes, you can study the guides provided by Google and do some manual fixing. If not, then there are plugins that will help you achieve this goal; the most popular being the Autoptimize that can help in optimizing CSS, JS and even HTML of your WordPress website.
If you test your WordPress website with Google PageSpeed Insights or slow, you’ll be prompt up with a warning to minify JavaScript and CSS files. That means you need to reduce JS and CSS calls to reduce server response time and minify file sizes. By reducing them, you’ll observe site-loading speed becomes much faster than before. This will eventually help you to save bandwidth usage.
Use a CDN
The people who visit your website belong to various locations in the world, and needless to say, the site-loading speed will differ if the visitors are located far away from where your site is hosted. There are many CDN (Content Delivery Networks) that help in keeping the site-loading speed to a minimum for visitors from various countries. A CDN keeps a copy of your website in various data centers located in different places. The primary function of a CDN is to serve the webpage to a visitor from the nearest possible location. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are among the most popular CDN services.
For example, let’s say your web hosting company has its servers in the United States. A visitor who’s also in the United States will generally see faster loading times than a visitor in India.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to speed up loading times for all of your visitors. A CDN is a network made up of servers all around the world. Each server will store “static” files used to make up your website. These static files include unchanging files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, unlike your WordPress pages which are “dynamic” as explained above.
When you use a CDN, every time a user visits your website they are served those static files from whichever server is closest to them. Your own web hosting server will also be faster since the CDN is doing a lot of the work
Enable GZIP compression
Compressing files on your local computer can save a lot of disk space. Similarly, for the web, we can use GZIP compression. This maneuver will dramatically reduce the bandwidth usage and the time it takes to gain access to your website. GZIP compresses various files so that whenever a visitor tries to access your website; their browser will first have to unzip the website. This process brings down the bandwidth usage to a considerable extent.
You can use either a plugin like the PageSpeed Ninja, which enables GZIP compression or add the following codes in your .htaccess file.
Deleting unwanted data from your database will keep its size to a minimum and also helps in reducing the size of your backups. It is also necessary to delete spam comments, fake users, old drafts of your content and maybe even unwanted plugins as well as themes. All of this will reduce the size of your databases and web files, and thus speed up WordPress – your WordPress.
Deactivate or Uninstall Plugins
Keeping unwanted plugins on your WordPress websites will add a tremendous amount of junk to your web files. Moreover, it will also increase the size of your backup and put an overwhelming amount of load on your server resources while backup files are being generated. It is better to get rid of the plugins that you don’t use and also look for alternate methods to use third-party services for automating or scheduling tasks (like sharing of your latest posts to social media).
IFTTT or Zapier are two web services that help in automating such tasks and reduce the burden on your website and server resources.
Keep External Scripts to a Minimum
The usage of external scripts on your web pages adds a big chunk of data to your total loading time. Thus, it is best to use a low number of scripts, including only the essentials such as tracking tools (like Google Analytics) or commenting systems (like Disqus).
Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are two core WordPress components that alert you whenever your blog or page receives a link. It might sound useful, but you also have things such as Google Webmaster Tools and other services to check the links of your website.
Keeping pingbacks and trackbacks on can also put an undesirable amount of strain on your server resources. This is so because whenever anyone tries to link up to your site, it generates requests from WordPress back and forth. This functionality is also widely abused when targeting a website with DDoS attacks.
Use Latest PHP Version
WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language. It is a server-side language, which means it is installed and runs on your hosting server.
All good WordPress hosting companies use the most stable PHP version on their servers. However, it is possible that your hosting company is running a slightly older PHP version.
The newer PHP 7 is two times faster than its predecessors. That’s a huge performance boost that your website must take advantage of.
Upon activation, the plugin will show your PHP version in the footer area of your WordPress admin dashboard.
If your website is using a version lower than PHP 7, then ask your hosting provider to update it for you. If they are unable to do so, then it is time to find a new WordPress hosting company. That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to improve WordPress speed and performance.
Go ahead and try out these techniques. Don’t forget to test your website speed before and after implementing these best practices. You’ll be surprised these changes will boost your WordPress performance.
Decrease Server Requests
A server request happens every time your browser asks some type of resource from your server. This can be a file like a style sheet, a script or an image.
The more server requests necessary to complete loading your site, the longer it will take. As a consequence, requests should be as few as possible. Here are a few things you can do to reduce them to a minimum:
Lower the number of posts shown on a page
Only show post excerpts, no full posts on your archive pages (find the option under Settings > Reading)
Split longer posts into pages it’s easy
If you get a lot of comments, break them up into several pages (Settings > Discussion)
Reduce the number of images and other elements on your page
Uninstall unnecessary plugins, especially slower ones (find them with this plugin)
Deactivate plugins you are not using permanently
Enable lazy loading to delay loading images until they are actually visible on the page
Reduce external resources such as fonts if they aren’t necessary
Turn off Pingbacks and Trackbacks
By default, WordPress interacts with other blogs that are equipped with pingbacks and trackbacks.
Every time another blog mentions you, it notifies your site, which in turn updates data on the post. Turning this off will not destroy the backlinks to your site, just the setting that generates a lot of work for your site.
Look for Inactive Plugins or for Plugins that Don’t Work Properly
Another solution to speed up a WordPress site is by verifying if your current plugins are working correctly. Everyone uses various plugins and tools for various needs. They sometimes cause lag in your website, rendering it slow to load. You might give it a try and see how fast they are working.
To do the tests, you can get another plugin. It’s called the Query Monitor. This plugin is free and once installed, it will report any performance problems with your website. If there are plugins that slow down your website, remove them or try to find alternatives. Also, keeping a large number of active plugins will affect your WordPress site speed as well.
Testing and Digging Deeper
There is really a lot more to site optimization than what we’ve discussed here. However, these are five steps that will give you the most bang for the buck. For those of you who want to learn more and/or further optimize your website, I’d like to leave you with a list of three popular performance analysis sites (all with very useful free versions). These tools will run a series of tests on your site to identify performance issues and direct you as to how to correct them.
Disable Hotlinking and Leaching of Your Content
If you’re creating quality content on your WordPress site, then the sad truth is that it’ll probably get stolen sooner or later.
One way this happens is when other websites serve your images directly from their URLs on your website, instead of uploading them to their own servers. In effect, they’re stealing your web hosting bandwidth, and you don’t get any traffic to show for it.
Simply add this code to your .htaccess file to block hotlinking of images from your WordPress site.
[stextbox id=’grey’]
1
2
3
4
5
6
#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden orcustom image option
Note: Don’t forget to change wpbeginner.com with your own domain.
You may also want to check our article showing 4 ways to prevent image theft in WordPress. Some content scraping websites automatically create posts by stealing your content from your RSS feed. You can check out our guide on preventing blog content scraping in WordPress for ways to deal with automated content theft.
What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?
Your speed test report will likely have multiple recommendations for improvement. However, most of that is technical jargon which is hard for beginners to understand.
Learning what slows down your website is the key to improving performance and making smarter long-term decisions.
The primary causes of a slow WordPress website are:
Web Hosting – When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed.
WordPress Configuration – If your WordPress site is not serving cached pages, then it will overload your server thus causing your website to be slow or crash entirely.
Page Size – Mainly images that aren’t optimized for the web.
Bad Plugins – If you’re using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website.
External scripts – External scripts such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance.
Now that you know what slows down your WordPress website, let’s take a look at how to speed up your WordPress website.
Server and Hosting Technology
At the very bottom of how quickly a page load is a server it is hosted on, it’s location and your WordPress hosting plan. Let’s start with the latter.
Generally, there are three different types of hosting:
Shared hosting — That means your site lies on the same server as a number of other websites and needs to share its resources (processing power, RAM) with everyone else. This can lead to “bad neighbor” effects where one site is hogging the majority of resources and downtimes due to overload.
Virtual private server (VPS) — With this type of hosting, you usually have fewer sites on the same server. In addition, resources are allocated evenly across all sites present without the option to exceed them.
Dedicated server — You have one server just for you. There are no resources to share, everything is at the disposal of just your site.
In addition to the type of hosting, the technology used in the servers (both hardware and software) is also important. For example, does your server use the latest versions of PHP, HTML and other web techs? How about SSD hard drives? How much memory does it have? All that factors into how quickly it can serve up your website files.
Best Tips on How to Speed Up WordPress Website/Improving your website’s speed is something you should worry about the most during a technical audit. Generally, users prefer to browse sites that have better page loading speed and there are numerous online tools that offer detailed insights on your website speed performance.
Increasing the speed of a site starts with your WordPress web hosting. It is not much different than the process used for optimizing a website hosted on a shared or a dedicated server. For that reason, you might find some of the tools like Breeze mentioned below as being similar to what you were doing to your shared website.
How To Improving Your Website’s Speed
Use a Good Web Hosting Plan
It really all starts with choosing the right WordPress hosting plan with the right hosting company. Even before talking about speed, you must have a reliable company with solid and reliable hardware to host your website. If your site is unreliable, it doesn’t matter how fast it performs. Visitors will run away and never come back. Do your homework and check out user reviews for hosting companies.
Getting back to speed up your website, most hosting companies, such as Bluehost, offer a range of hosting plans, starting with inexpensive shared hosting and moving up through virtual servers, dedicated servers, and cloud servers. The prices increase as you move up through the different types of hosting, but the number of resources dedicated to your website also increases.
While it is OK, to begin with, shared hosting when you are just starting your site, be sure to regularly track your traffic volume and resource usage so that you can upgrade to a better hosting plan before visitors start noticing your site is sluggish.
Enable Caching
Simply put, caching is the technical term for storing data in a temporary storage area. This improves a site’s performance since a lot of a page’s content is already prepared and available and does not need to be fetched and processed in order to be displayed for a user. It also reduces the load of various system resources on your server.
We recommend you use the caching plugins provided by Bluehost, that are built to work best in that environment. You can find these cache settings on the performance page of the Bluehost plugin or WordPress section of the control panel.
If your site is not a WordPress site, enabling caching is more complex and beyond the scope of this article. In either case, you should discuss caching options with your hosting provider, since they will often have recommendations based on the optimizations they have implemented on their end.
Use Light Weight Theme
There are many shiny and beautiful themes in the WordPress market. But don’t forget, themes with a lot of dynamic content, widgets, slider, sidebar, etc., can cause your hosting server to respond slowly.
Always optimize the WordPress theme or use a lightweight WordPress theme. The default WordPress themes can be enough if you want to run a blogging website. For more features, you can use themes that are built on Bootstrap and Foundation.
The best option here is to use lightweight themes, like WordPress’ default themes. The new Twenty Fifteen theme is always a good way to start off a blog. For a feature-rich website, you can also opt for a theme that uses a good framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. For instance, all themes at ThemeIsle are built on top of Bootstrap, which provides a great way to speed up WordPress.
Control Post Revisions
No doubt, post revision is a great feature in WordPress. But, not every feature is feasible for everyone. There are few users with low disk and database space.
In post revisions, every time you change the content, a new copy of the post is saved in the database rather than deleting the previous one. So that you can always have a chance to revert. It increases the database size, and a large size database can cause many problems.
You can limit the frequency to autosave a post. From the root folder of your WordPress installation, open wp-config file with any file editor and write any of the below code before the code requirements.
Optimize Your WordPress site’s Homepage
Another thing you can do to speed up a WordPress site is to optimize your homepage. Make it look simpler, without clustered content and useless widgets or tools.
Also, don’t show the posts at their full length. You can show only the first paragraph or a specific excerpt from the text. Displaying too many posts on the same page could cause a longer loading time as well.
Things that you can do include
Show excerpts instead of full posts
Reduce the number of posts on the page (I like showing between 5-7)
Remove unnecessary sharing widgets from the home page (include them only in posts)
Remove inactive plugins and widgets that you don’t need
Keep in minimal! Readers are here for content, not 8,000 widgets on the homepage
Reduce Image Sizes
Images are the major contributors to the size increment of a given webpage. The trick is to reduce the size of the images without compromising on the quality.
If you manually optimize the images using Chrome PageSpeed Insights extension or Photoshop or any other tools, the process will take a long time. Fortunately, there are plugins available for just about everything you can think of, including image optimization.
Using any of the above-mentioned plugins on your WordPress site will drastically reduce image sizes, thus improving the speed of your website.
Images bring life to your content and help boost engagement. Researchers have found that using colored visuals makes people 80% more likely to read your content.
However, if your images aren’t optimized, then they could be hurting more than helping. In fact, non-optimized images are one of the most common speed issues that we see on beginner websites.
Before you upload a photo directly from your phone or camera, we recommend that you use photo editing software to optimize your images for the web.
Well, the PNG image format is uncompressed. When you compress an image it loses some information, so an uncompressed image will be higher quality with more detail. The downside is that it’s larger file size, so it takes longer to load.
JPEG, on the other hand, is a compressed file format that slightly reduces image quality, but it’s significantly smaller in size.
So how do we decide which image format to choose?
If our photo or image has a lot of different colors, then we use JPEG.
If it’s a simpler image or we need a transparent image, then we use PNG.
The majority of our images are JPEGs.
Minify JS and CSS files
If you run your website through the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you will probably be notified about minimizing the size of your CSS and JS files. What this means is that by reducing the number of CSS and JS calls and the size of those files, you can improve the site loading speed.
Also, if you know your way around WordPress themes, you can study the guides provided by Google and do some manual fixing. If not, then there are plugins that will help you achieve this goal; the most popular being the Autoptimize that can help in optimizing CSS, JS and even HTML of your WordPress website.
If you test your WordPress website with Google PageSpeed Insights or slow, you’ll be prompt up with a warning to minify JavaScript and CSS files. That means you need to reduce JS and CSS calls to reduce server response time and minify file sizes. By reducing them, you’ll observe site-loading speed becomes much faster than before. This will eventually help you to save bandwidth usage.
Use a CDN
The people who visit your website belong to various locations in the world, and needless to say, the site-loading speed will differ if the visitors are located far away from where your site is hosted. There are many CDN (Content Delivery Networks) that help in keeping the site-loading speed to a minimum for visitors from various countries. A CDN keeps a copy of your website in various data centers located in different places. The primary function of a CDN is to serve the webpage to a visitor from the nearest possible location. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are among the most popular CDN services.
For example, let’s say your web hosting company has its servers in the United States. A visitor who’s also in the United States will generally see faster loading times than a visitor in India.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to speed up loading times for all of your visitors. A CDN is a network made up of servers all around the world. Each server will store “static” files used to make up your website. These static files include unchanging files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, unlike your WordPress pages which are “dynamic” as explained above.
When you use a CDN, every time a user visits your website they are served those static files from whichever server is closest to them. Your own web hosting server will also be faster since the CDN is doing a lot of the work
Enable GZIP compression
Compressing files on your local computer can save a lot of disk space. Similarly, for the web, we can use GZIP compression. This maneuver will dramatically reduce the bandwidth usage and the time it takes to gain access to your website. GZIP compresses various files so that whenever a visitor tries to access your website; their browser will first have to unzip the website. This process brings down the bandwidth usage to a considerable extent.
You can use either a plugin like the PageSpeed Ninja, which enables GZIP compression or add the following codes in your .htaccess file.
Deleting unwanted data from your database will keep its size to a minimum and also helps in reducing the size of your backups. It is also necessary to delete spam comments, fake users, old drafts of your content and maybe even unwanted plugins as well as themes. All of this will reduce the size of your databases and web files, and thus speed up WordPress – your WordPress.
Deactivate or Uninstall Plugins
Keeping unwanted plugins on your WordPress websites will add a tremendous amount of junk to your web files. Moreover, it will also increase the size of your backup and put an overwhelming amount of load on your server resources while backup files are being generated. It is better to get rid of the plugins that you don’t use and also look for alternate methods to use third-party services for automating or scheduling tasks (like sharing of your latest posts to social media).
IFTTT or Zapier are two web services that help in automating such tasks and reduce the burden on your website and server resources.
Keep External Scripts to a Minimum
The usage of external scripts on your web pages adds a big chunk of data to your total loading time. Thus, it is best to use a low number of scripts, including only the essentials such as tracking tools (like Google Analytics) or commenting systems (like Disqus).
Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are two core WordPress components that alert you whenever your blog or page receives a link. It might sound useful, but you also have things such as Google Webmaster Tools and other services to check the links of your website.
Keeping pingbacks and trackbacks on can also put an undesirable amount of strain on your server resources. This is so because whenever anyone tries to link up to your site, it generates requests from WordPress back and forth. This functionality is also widely abused when targeting a website with DDoS attacks.
Use Latest PHP Version
WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language. It is a server-side language, which means it is installed and runs on your hosting server.
All good WordPress hosting companies use the most stable PHP version on their servers. However, it is possible that your hosting company is running a slightly older PHP version.
The newer PHP 7 is two times faster than its predecessors. That’s a huge performance boost that your website must take advantage of.
Upon activation, the plugin will show your PHP version in the footer area of your WordPress admin dashboard.
If your website is using a version lower than PHP 7, then ask your hosting provider to update it for you. If they are unable to do so, then it is time to find a new WordPress hosting company. That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to improve WordPress speed and performance.
Go ahead and try out these techniques. Don’t forget to test your website speed before and after implementing these best practices. You’ll be surprised these changes will boost your WordPress performance.
Decrease Server Requests
A server request happens every time your browser asks some type of resource from your server. This can be a file like a style sheet, a script or an image.
The more server requests necessary to complete loading your site, the longer it will take. As a consequence, requests should be as few as possible. Here are a few things you can do to reduce them to a minimum:
Lower the number of posts shown on a page
Only show post excerpts, no full posts on your archive pages (find the option under Settings > Reading)
Split longer posts into pages it’s easy
If you get a lot of comments, break them up into several pages (Settings > Discussion)
Reduce the number of images and other elements on your page
Uninstall unnecessary plugins, especially slower ones (find them with this plugin)
Deactivate plugins you are not using permanently
Enable lazy loading to delay loading images until they are actually visible on the page
Reduce external resources such as fonts if they aren’t necessary
Turn off Pingbacks and Trackbacks
By default, WordPress interacts with other blogs that are equipped with pingbacks and trackbacks.
Every time another blog mentions you, it notifies your site, which in turn updates data on the post. Turning this off will not destroy the backlinks to your site, just the setting that generates a lot of work for your site.
Look for Inactive Plugins or for Plugins that Don’t Work Properly
Another solution to speed up a WordPress site is by verifying if your current plugins are working correctly. Everyone uses various plugins and tools for various needs. They sometimes cause lag in your website, rendering it slow to load. You might give it a try and see how fast they are working.
To do the tests, you can get another plugin. It’s called the Query Monitor. This plugin is free and once installed, it will report any performance problems with your website. If there are plugins that slow down your website, remove them or try to find alternatives. Also, keeping a large number of active plugins will affect your WordPress site speed as well.
Testing and Digging Deeper
There is really a lot more to site optimization than what we’ve discussed here. However, these are five steps that will give you the most bang for the buck. For those of you who want to learn more and/or further optimize your website, I’d like to leave you with a list of three popular performance analysis sites (all with very useful free versions). These tools will run a series of tests on your site to identify performance issues and direct you as to how to correct them.
Disable Hotlinking and Leaching of Your Content
If you’re creating quality content on your WordPress site, then the sad truth is that it’ll probably get stolen sooner or later.
One way this happens is when other websites serve your images directly from their URLs on your website, instead of uploading them to their own servers. In effect, they’re stealing your web hosting bandwidth, and you don’t get any traffic to show for it.
Simply add this code to your .htaccess file to block hotlinking of images from your WordPress site.
[stextbox id=’grey’]
1
2
3
4
5
6
#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden orcustom image option
Note: Don’t forget to change wpbeginner.com with your own domain.
You may also want to check our article showing 4 ways to prevent image theft in WordPress. Some content scraping websites automatically create posts by stealing your content from your RSS feed. You can check out our guide on preventing blog content scraping in WordPress for ways to deal with automated content theft.
What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?
Your speed test report will likely have multiple recommendations for improvement. However, most of that is technical jargon which is hard for beginners to understand.
Learning what slows down your website is the key to improving performance and making smarter long-term decisions.
The primary causes of a slow WordPress website are:
Web Hosting – When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed.
WordPress Configuration – If your WordPress site is not serving cached pages, then it will overload your server thus causing your website to be slow or crash entirely.
Page Size – Mainly images that aren’t optimized for the web.
Bad Plugins – If you’re using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website.
External scripts – External scripts such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance.
Now that you know what slows down your WordPress website, let’s take a look at how to speed up your WordPress website.
Server and Hosting Technology
At the very bottom of how quickly a page load is a server it is hosted on, it’s location and your WordPress hosting plan. Let’s start with the latter.
Generally, there are three different types of hosting:
Shared hosting — That means your site lies on the same server as a number of other websites and needs to share its resources (processing power, RAM) with everyone else. This can lead to “bad neighbor” effects where one site is hogging the majority of resources and downtimes due to overload.
Virtual private server (VPS) — With this type of hosting, you usually have fewer sites on the same server. In addition, resources are allocated evenly across all sites present without the option to exceed them.
Dedicated server — You have one server just for you. There are no resources to share, everything is at the disposal of just your site.
In addition to the type of hosting, the technology used in the servers (both hardware and software) is also important. For example, does your server use the latest versions of PHP, HTML and other web techs? How about SSD hard drives? How much memory does it have? All that factors into how quickly it can serve up your website files.
How To Improving Your Website’s Speed/Improving your website’s speed is something you should worry about the most during a technical audit. Generally, users prefer to browse sites that have better page loading speed and there are numerous online tools that offer detailed insights on your website speed performance.
Increasing the speed of a site starts with your WordPress web hosting. It is not much different than the process used for optimizing a website hosted on a shared or a dedicated server. For that reason, you might find some of the tools like Breeze mentioned below as being similar to what you were doing to your shared website.
How To Improving Your Website’s Speed
Use a Good Web Hosting Plan
It really all starts with choosing the right WordPress hosting plan with the right hosting company. Even before talking about speed, you must have a reliable company with solid and reliable hardware to host your website. If your site is unreliable, it doesn’t matter how fast it performs. Visitors will run away and never come back. Do your homework and check out user reviews for hosting companies.
Getting back to speed up your website, most hosting companies, such as Bluehost, offer a range of hosting plans, starting with inexpensive shared hosting and moving up through virtual servers, dedicated servers, and cloud servers. The prices increase as you move up through the different types of hosting, but the number of resources dedicated to your website also increases.
While it is OK, to begin with, shared hosting when you are just starting your site, be sure to regularly track your traffic volume and resource usage so that you can upgrade to a better hosting plan before visitors start noticing your site is sluggish.
Enable Caching
Simply put, caching is the technical term for storing data in a temporary storage area. This improves a site’s performance since a lot of a page’s content is already prepared and available and does not need to be fetched and processed in order to be displayed for a user. It also reduces the load of various system resources on your server.
We recommend you use the caching plugins provided by Bluehost, that are built to work best in that environment. You can find these cache settings on the performance page of the Bluehost plugin or WordPress section of the control panel.
If your site is not a WordPress site, enabling caching is more complex and beyond the scope of this article. In either case, you should discuss caching options with your hosting provider, since they will often have recommendations based on the optimizations they have implemented on their end.
Use Light Weight Theme
There are many shiny and beautiful themes in the WordPress market. But don’t forget, themes with a lot of dynamic content, widgets, slider, sidebar, etc., can cause your hosting server to respond slowly.
Always optimize the WordPress theme or use a lightweight WordPress theme. The default WordPress themes can be enough if you want to run a blogging website. For more features, you can use themes that are built on Bootstrap and Foundation.
The best option here is to use lightweight themes, like WordPress’ default themes. The new Twenty Fifteen theme is always a good way to start off a blog. For a feature-rich website, you can also opt for a theme that uses a good framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. For instance, all themes at ThemeIsle are built on top of Bootstrap, which provides a great way to speed up WordPress.
Control Post Revisions
No doubt, post revision is a great feature in WordPress. But, not every feature is feasible for everyone. There are few users with low disk and database space.
In post revisions, every time you change the content, a new copy of the post is saved in the database rather than deleting the previous one. So that you can always have a chance to revert. It increases the database size, and a large size database can cause many problems.
You can limit the frequency to autosave a post. From the root folder of your WordPress installation, open wp-config file with any file editor and write any of the below code before the code requirements.
Optimize Your WordPress site’s Homepage
Another thing you can do to speed up a WordPress site is to optimize your homepage. Make it look simpler, without clustered content and useless widgets or tools.
Also, don’t show the posts at their full length. You can show only the first paragraph or a specific excerpt from the text. Displaying too many posts on the same page could cause a longer loading time as well.
Things that you can do include
Show excerpts instead of full posts
Reduce the number of posts on the page (I like showing between 5-7)
Remove unnecessary sharing widgets from the home page (include them only in posts)
Remove inactive plugins and widgets that you don’t need
Keep in minimal! Readers are here for content, not 8,000 widgets on the homepage
Reduce Image Sizes
Images are the major contributors to the size increment of a given webpage. The trick is to reduce the size of the images without compromising on the quality.
If you manually optimize the images using Chrome PageSpeed Insights extension or Photoshop or any other tools, the process will take a long time. Fortunately, there are plugins available for just about everything you can think of, including image optimization.
Using any of the above-mentioned plugins on your WordPress site will drastically reduce image sizes, thus improving the speed of your website.
Images bring life to your content and help boost engagement. Researchers have found that using colored visuals makes people 80% more likely to read your content.
However, if your images aren’t optimized, then they could be hurting more than helping. In fact, non-optimized images are one of the most common speed issues that we see on beginner websites.
Before you upload a photo directly from your phone or camera, we recommend that you use photo editing software to optimize your images for the web.
Well, the PNG image format is uncompressed. When you compress an image it loses some information, so an uncompressed image will be higher quality with more detail. The downside is that it’s larger file size, so it takes longer to load.
JPEG, on the other hand, is a compressed file format that slightly reduces image quality, but it’s significantly smaller in size.
So how do we decide which image format to choose?
If our photo or image has a lot of different colors, then we use JPEG.
If it’s a simpler image or we need a transparent image, then we use PNG.
The majority of our images are JPEGs.
Minify JS and CSS files
If you run your website through the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, you will probably be notified about minimizing the size of your CSS and JS files. What this means is that by reducing the number of CSS and JS calls and the size of those files, you can improve the site loading speed.
Also, if you know your way around WordPress themes, you can study the guides provided by Google and do some manual fixing. If not, then there are plugins that will help you achieve this goal; the most popular being the Autoptimize that can help in optimizing CSS, JS and even HTML of your WordPress website.
If you test your WordPress website with Google PageSpeed Insights or slow, you’ll be prompt up with a warning to minify JavaScript and CSS files. That means you need to reduce JS and CSS calls to reduce server response time and minify file sizes. By reducing them, you’ll observe site-loading speed becomes much faster than before. This will eventually help you to save bandwidth usage.
Use a CDN
The people who visit your website belong to various locations in the world, and needless to say, the site-loading speed will differ if the visitors are located far away from where your site is hosted. There are many CDN (Content Delivery Networks) that help in keeping the site-loading speed to a minimum for visitors from various countries. A CDN keeps a copy of your website in various data centers located in different places. The primary function of a CDN is to serve the webpage to a visitor from the nearest possible location. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are among the most popular CDN services.
For example, let’s say your web hosting company has its servers in the United States. A visitor who’s also in the United States will generally see faster loading times than a visitor in India.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to speed up loading times for all of your visitors. A CDN is a network made up of servers all around the world. Each server will store “static” files used to make up your website. These static files include unchanging files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, unlike your WordPress pages which are “dynamic” as explained above.
When you use a CDN, every time a user visits your website they are served those static files from whichever server is closest to them. Your own web hosting server will also be faster since the CDN is doing a lot of the work
Enable GZIP compression
Compressing files on your local computer can save a lot of disk space. Similarly, for the web, we can use GZIP compression. This maneuver will dramatically reduce the bandwidth usage and the time it takes to gain access to your website. GZIP compresses various files so that whenever a visitor tries to access your website; their browser will first have to unzip the website. This process brings down the bandwidth usage to a considerable extent.
You can use either a plugin like the PageSpeed Ninja, which enables GZIP compression or add the following codes in your .htaccess file.
Deleting unwanted data from your database will keep its size to a minimum and also helps in reducing the size of your backups. It is also necessary to delete spam comments, fake users, old drafts of your content and maybe even unwanted plugins as well as themes. All of this will reduce the size of your databases and web files, and thus speed up WordPress – your WordPress.
Deactivate or Uninstall Plugins
Keeping unwanted plugins on your WordPress websites will add a tremendous amount of junk to your web files. Moreover, it will also increase the size of your backup and put an overwhelming amount of load on your server resources while backup files are being generated. It is better to get rid of the plugins that you don’t use and also look for alternate methods to use third-party services for automating or scheduling tasks (like sharing of your latest posts to social media).
IFTTT or Zapier are two web services that help in automating such tasks and reduce the burden on your website and server resources.
Keep External Scripts to a Minimum
The usage of external scripts on your web pages adds a big chunk of data to your total loading time. Thus, it is best to use a low number of scripts, including only the essentials such as tracking tools (like Google Analytics) or commenting systems (like Disqus).
Disable Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are two core WordPress components that alert you whenever your blog or page receives a link. It might sound useful, but you also have things such as Google Webmaster Tools and other services to check the links of your website.
Keeping pingbacks and trackbacks on can also put an undesirable amount of strain on your server resources. This is so because whenever anyone tries to link up to your site, it generates requests from WordPress back and forth. This functionality is also widely abused when targeting a website with DDoS attacks.
Use Latest PHP Version
WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language. It is a server-side language, which means it is installed and runs on your hosting server.
All good WordPress hosting companies use the most stable PHP version on their servers. However, it is possible that your hosting company is running a slightly older PHP version.
The newer PHP 7 is two times faster than its predecessors. That’s a huge performance boost that your website must take advantage of.
Upon activation, the plugin will show your PHP version in the footer area of your WordPress admin dashboard.
If your website is using a version lower than PHP 7, then ask your hosting provider to update it for you. If they are unable to do so, then it is time to find a new WordPress hosting company. That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to improve WordPress speed and performance.
Go ahead and try out these techniques. Don’t forget to test your website speed before and after implementing these best practices. You’ll be surprised these changes will boost your WordPress performance.
Decrease Server Requests
A server request happens every time your browser asks some type of resource from your server. This can be a file like a style sheet, a script or an image.
The more server requests necessary to complete loading your site, the longer it will take. As a consequence, requests should be as few as possible. Here are a few things you can do to reduce them to a minimum:
Lower the number of posts shown on a page
Only show post excerpts, no full posts on your archive pages (find the option under Settings > Reading)
Split longer posts into pages it’s easy
If you get a lot of comments, break them up into several pages (Settings > Discussion)
Reduce the number of images and other elements on your page
Uninstall unnecessary plugins, especially slower ones (find them with this plugin)
Deactivate plugins you are not using permanently
Enable lazy loading to delay loading images until they are actually visible on the page
Reduce external resources such as fonts if they aren’t necessary
Turn off Pingbacks and Trackbacks
By default, WordPress interacts with other blogs that are equipped with pingbacks and trackbacks.
Every time another blog mentions you, it notifies your site, which in turn updates data on the post. Turning this off will not destroy the backlinks to your site, just the setting that generates a lot of work for your site.
Look for Inactive Plugins or for Plugins that Don’t Work Properly
Another solution to speed up a WordPress site is by verifying if your current plugins are working correctly. Everyone uses various plugins and tools for various needs. They sometimes cause lag in your website, rendering it slow to load. You might give it a try and see how fast they are working.
To do the tests, you can get another plugin. It’s called the Query Monitor. This plugin is free and once installed, it will report any performance problems with your website. If there are plugins that slow down your website, remove them or try to find alternatives. Also, keeping a large number of active plugins will affect your WordPress site speed as well.
Testing and Digging Deeper
There is really a lot more to site optimization than what we’ve discussed here. However, these are five steps that will give you the most bang for the buck. For those of you who want to learn more and/or further optimize your website, I’d like to leave you with a list of three popular performance analysis sites (all with very useful free versions). These tools will run a series of tests on your site to identify performance issues and direct you as to how to correct them.
Disable Hotlinking and Leaching of Your Content
If you’re creating quality content on your WordPress site, then the sad truth is that it’ll probably get stolen sooner or later.
One way this happens is when other websites serve your images directly from their URLs on your website, instead of uploading them to their own servers. In effect, they’re stealing your web hosting bandwidth, and you don’t get any traffic to show for it.
Simply add this code to your .htaccess file to block hotlinking of images from your WordPress site.
[stextbox id=’grey’]
1
2
3
4
5
6
#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden orcustom image option
Note: Don’t forget to change wpbeginner.com with your own domain.
You may also want to check our article showing 4 ways to prevent image theft in WordPress. Some content scraping websites automatically create posts by stealing your content from your RSS feed. You can check out our guide on preventing blog content scraping in WordPress for ways to deal with automated content theft.
What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?
Your speed test report will likely have multiple recommendations for improvement. However, most of that is technical jargon which is hard for beginners to understand.
Learning what slows down your website is the key to improving performance and making smarter long-term decisions.
The primary causes of a slow WordPress website are:
Web Hosting – When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed.
WordPress Configuration – If your WordPress site is not serving cached pages, then it will overload your server thus causing your website to be slow or crash entirely.
Page Size – Mainly images that aren’t optimized for the web.
Bad Plugins – If you’re using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website.
External scripts – External scripts such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance.
Now that you know what slows down your WordPress website, let’s take a look at how to speed up your WordPress website.
Server and Hosting Technology
At the very bottom of how quickly a page load is a server it is hosted on, it’s location and your WordPress hosting plan. Let’s start with the latter.
Generally, there are three different types of hosting:
Shared hosting — That means your site lies on the same server as a number of other websites and needs to share its resources (processing power, RAM) with everyone else. This can lead to “bad neighbor” effects where one site is hogging the majority of resources and downtimes due to overload.
Virtual private server (VPS) — With this type of hosting, you usually have fewer sites on the same server. In addition, resources are allocated evenly across all sites present without the option to exceed them.
Dedicated server — You have one server just for you. There are no resources to share, everything is at the disposal of just your site.
In addition to the type of hosting, the technology used in the servers (both hardware and software) is also important. For example, does your server use the latest versions of PHP, HTML and other web techs? How about SSD hard drives? How much memory does it have? All that factors into how quickly it can serve up your website files.
How to manage MySQL databases and users in cPanel/phpMyAdmin is a free software tool written in PHP, intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. phpMyAdmin supports a wide range of operations on MySQL and MariaDB. Frequently used operations (managing databases, tables, columns, relations, indexes, users, permissions, etc) can be performed via the user interface, while you still have the ability to directly execute any SQL statement.
This article describes how to use cPanel to manage MySQL databases and users. You can add, modify, and delete databases and users, as well as manage user database permissions.
Managing Database Users
To access MySQL databases, you must first create at least one user. The following procedures describe how to manage MySQL database users using cPanel.
Creating a database user
To create a MySQL database user, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account,
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen, click MySQL® Databases:
Under Add New User, in the Username text box, type the MySQL username.
In the Password text box, type the user password.
In the Password (Again) text box, retype the user password.
You can click Password Generator and cPanel generates a random, strong password for you.
Click Create User. cPanel creates the database user.
Changing a user’s password
You can change a database user’s password. You may want to do this for security reasons (changing passwords periodically is a good security practice), or you may need to do this if you forget the password.
To change a MySQL user’s password, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account,
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen, click MySQL® Databases:
Under Current Users, locate the user for which you want to change the password, and then click Change Password.
In the Password and Password (Again) text boxes, type the new password.
You can click Password Generator and cPanel generates a random, strong password for you.
Click Change Password. The new password takes effect immediately.
Renaming a user
To rename a MySQL user, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account,
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen, click MySQL® Databases:
Under Current Users, locate the user that you want to rename, and then click Rename.
In the New name text box, type the new name, and then click Proceed. cPanel renames the user.
Deleting a user
When you delete a user, the user and its database permissions are deleted.
Make sure you do not have any applications that currently use the database user!
To delete a MySQL user, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen, click MySQL® Databases:
Under Current Users, locate the user that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
Click Delete User to confirm the deletion.
MANAGING DATABASES
After you create a database user, you are ready to create a database and associate the user with the new database.
Creating a database
To create a MySQL database, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen,
Under Create New Database, in the New Database text box, type the name of the database.
Click Create Database. cPanel creates the database.
When you create a database, your username is prefixed to the database name. For example, if your username is a username, and you create a database named database, the actual MySQL database name is username_database.
Adding a user to a database
To add a MySQL user to a database, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen,
Under Add User to Database, in the User list box, select the user that you want to add.
In the Database list box, select the database.
Click Add.
Select the checkboxes to grant the user-specific privileges, or select the ALL PRIVILEGES checkbox to grant the user all permissions to the database.
Click Make Changes. cPanel adds the user to the database.
Checking and repairing a database
You can check MySQL databases for errors or possible corruption. If a database check reveals problems, you can repair the database as well.
To check and repair a database, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen,
To check a database:
Under Modify Databases, in the Check Database list box, select the database.
Click Check Database.
If a database check indicates problems with a database, you can repair it:
Under Modify Databases, in the Repair Database list box, select the database.
Click the Repair Database.
Revoking privileges from a database user
When you revoke a database user’s privileges, the user can no longer access the database. To do this, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen,
Under Current Databases, locate the user for which you want to revoke privileges, and then click the trash can icon.
Click Revoke User Privileges from Database.
Deleting a database
Before you delete a database, make sure that you have a backup copy if you want to save any information that it contains.
When you delete a database, any associated users are not deleted. However, all privileges users have for that database are revoked.
To delete a MySQL database, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account,
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen,
Under Current Databases, locate the database that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
Click Delete Database. cPanel deletes the database.
phpMyAdmin is a free and open-source administration tool for MySQL and MariaDB. As a portable web application written primarily in PHP, it has become one of the most popular MySQL administration tools, especially for web hosting services.
What is phpMyAdmin
phpMyAdmin is a free software tool written in PHP, intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. phpMyAdmin supports a wide range of operations on MySQL and MariaDB. Frequently used operations (managing databases, tables, columns, relations, indexes, users, permissions, etc) can be performed via the user interface, while you still have the ability to directly execute any SQL statement.
phpMyAdmin is also very deeply documented in a book written by one of the developers – Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management, which is available in English and Spanish.
To ease usage to a wide range of people, phpMyAdmin is being translated into 72 languages and supports both LTR and RTL languages.
phpMyAdmin is a mature project with a stable and flexible code base; you can find out more about the project and its history and the awards it earned. When the project turned 15, we published a celebration page.
The phpMyAdmin project is a member of Software Freedom Conservancy. SFC is a not-for-profit organization that helps promote, improve, develop, and defends Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects.
phpMyAdmin is loaded with a number of features that have helped it grow into one of the most popular database administration tools available today. Just some of these tools include:
The user-friendly interface makes it particularly easy to manage your databases
Allows for both the management of your MySQL and MariaDB databases
The option to import your data from both SQL and CSV formats
Option to export your data from numerous formats including CSV, SQL, PDF, XML, Word, Excel and many more
The ability to administer multiple servers at once
Build PDF graphics of the layout of your database
The options to either search a subset of your database or perform a global search
Change the data you have stored into any format of your choosing through the use of predefined functions
View real-time activity charts for the monitoring of your MySQL server including CPU/RAM use, server processes, and connections
phpMyAdmin is compatible with a number of different operating systems
How PhpMyAdmin Got Its Start
phpMyAdmin was created in September 1998 by IT consultant Tobias Ratschiller as a means to make database management easier. He appreciated a similar project called MySQL-Webadmin but looked to improve on a few of its shortcomings and features it lacked. Ratschiller was successful in creating a better database management solution, evident by the fact that it was quickly adopted by users. However, Ratschiller had to abandon working on phpMyAdmin in 2000 simply because he didn’t have the time to appropriately attend to it. His last release was made in June of that same year. Not long after, the trio of developers Loic Chapeaux, Marc Delisle and Olivier Muller was able to pick up where Ratschiller left off. Since their first release of phpMyAdmin in August 2001, the work of the three developers has helped phpMyAdmin continue to thrive and pick up steam.
PhpMyAdmin Database Management Options
With all the powerful features included within phpMyAdmin, it’s easy to forget that it’s designed to make it easier to manage your MariaDB and MySQL databases. Here are the ways phpMyAdmin makes it possible to do just that:
Browse Tables – You can view all tables that have existing records with a click of the browse button. From there you’ll see a comprehensive list of the table’s records.
Table Structure – Click the button to view a list of the table’s field names, attributes, types, collations and just about anything else you could want to know.
Add Information – Click the Insert button within your phpMyAdmin install to insert records within your database.
Search Function – Easily find any information you’re looking for within a specific table.
Drop – Use this functionality to remove an entire table as well as any records that it contains.
Remove Data – Similar to the drop button, the Empty button gives you the ability to remove data while still keep the newly empty table.
What is it good for?
The phpMyAdmin program is handy for performing maintenance operations on tables, backing up information, and editing things directly in the event that WordPress is not working. Occasionally, in the Support Forums, someone will post a SQL query of some benefit or other that can be run using phpMyAdmin. Although many of the same tasks can be performed on the MySQL command line, doing so is not an option for many people.
Where can I get it?
Often host control panels, such as cPanel and Plesk, have phpMyAdmin pre-installed, so there is nothing special you have to do to use it. It is usually linked from the database page. Ask your host if this is available. You can download phpMyAdmin yourself and install it from the main phpMyAdmin project page.
Warning
With great power comes great responsibility. phpMyAdmin allows you to interact with the database directly: it also lets you mess up the database directly. There is no “undo” or “undelete” in your database. Always exercise caution when working with the database.
Features
Features provided by the program include:
Web interface
MySQL and MariaDB database management
Import data from CSV and SQL
Export data to various formats: CSV, SQL, XML, PDF (via the TCPDF library), ISO/IEC 26300 – OpenDocument Text and Spreadsheet, Word, Excel, LaTeX and others
Administering multiple servers
Creating PDF graphics of the database layout
Creating complex queries using query-by-example (QBE)
Searching globally in a database or a subset of it
Transforming stored data into any format using a set of predefined functions, like displaying BLOB-data as image or download-link
Live charts to monitor MySQL server activity like connections, processes, CPU/memory usage, etc.
Warning: mysqli_query(): (HY000/1194): Table ‘wp_options’ is marked as … should be repaired in /home/britainco/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php. MySQL is the most popular Open Source Relational SQL Database Management System. MySQL is one of the best RDBMS being used for developing various web-based software applications. MySQL is developed, marketed and supported by MySQL AB, which is a Swedish company. This tutorial will give you a quick start to MySQL and make you comfortable with MySQL programming.
Optimizing MYSQL Database
Databases have the potential to grow very large, particularly on sites that receive a lot of traffic or have a large amount of content. In such cases, periodic database optimization may help improve web site performance.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account, please see this article.
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen, click phpMyAdmin:
The phpMyAdmin administration page appears in a new window.
In the left pane, click the name of the database that you want to optimize. For example, the following image shows the example_wordpress database selected:
In the right pane, select the checkboxes for the tables in the database that you want to optimize.
To select all of the tables at once, select the Check All checkbox.
In the With selected list box, select Optimize table. phpMyAdmin informs you whether or not the optimization process is successful.
REPAIRING MYSQL DATABASES
Databases can become corrupted for any number of reasons, from software defects to hardware issues. If this occurs, you can try to repair database tables using phpMyAdmin.
To repair MySQL database tables, follow these steps:
Log in to cPanel.
If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account,
In the DATABASES section of the cPanel home screen, click phpMyAdmin:The phpMyAdmin administration page appears in a new window.
In the left pane, click the name of the database that you want to work on. For example, the following image shows the example_wordpress database selected:
In the right pane, select the checkboxes for the tables in the database that you want to repair.
To select all of the tables at once, select the Check All checkbox.
In the With selected list box, select Repair table. phpMyAdmin informs you whether or not the repair process is successful.
What is phpMyAdmin?
phpMyAdmin is a PHP-based, easy to use solution for the administration of MySQL and MariaDB databases. It is an extremely mature software option getting its start back in September 1998.
phpMyAdmin database management features
phpMyAdmin is loaded with a number of features that have helped it grow into one of the most popular database administration tools available today. Just some of these tools include:
The user-friendly interface makes it particularly easy to manage your databases
Allows for both the management of your MySQL and MariaDB databases
The option to import your data from both SQL and CSV formats
Option to export your data from numerous formats including CSV, SQL, PDF, XML, Word, Excel and many more
The ability to administer multiple servers at once
Build PDF graphics of the layout of your database
The options to either search a subset of your database or perform a global search
Change the data you have stored into any format of your choosing through the use of predefined functions
View real-time activity charts for the monitoring of your MySQL server including CPU/RAM use, server processes, and connections
phpMyAdmin is compatible with a number of different operating systems
How phpMyAdmin got its start
phpMyAdmin was created in September 1998 by IT consultant Tobias Ratschiller as a means to make database management easier. He appreciated a similar project called MySQL-Webadmin but looked to improve on a few of its shortcomings and features it lacked. Ratschiller was successful in creating a better database management solution, evident by the fact that it was quickly adopted by users. However, Ratschiller had to abandon working on phpMyAdmin in 2000 simply because he didn’t have the time to appropriately attend to it. His last release was made in June of that same year. Not long after, the trio of developers Loic Chapeaux, Marc Delisle and Olivier Muller was able to pick up where Ratschiller left off. Since their first release of phpMyAdmin in August 2001, the work of the three developers has helped phpMyAdmin continue to thrive and pick up steam.
phpMyAdmin database management options
With all the powerful features included within phpMyAdmin, it’s easy to forget that it’s designed to make it easier to manage your MariaDB and MySQL databases. Here are the ways phpMyAdmin makes it possible to do just that:
Browse Tables – You can view all tables that have existing records with a click of the browse button. From there you’ll see a comprehensive list of the table’s records.
Table Structure – Click the button to view a list of the table’s field names, attributes, types, collations and just about anything else you could want to know.
Add Information – Click the Insert button within your phpMyAdmin install to insert records within your database.
Search Function – Easily find any information you’re looking for within a specific table.
Drop – Use this functionality to remove an entire table as well as any records that it contains.
Remove Data – Similar to the drop button, the Empty button gives you the ability to remove data while still keep the newly empty table.
jQuery is a JavaScript library designed to simplify HTML DOM tree traversal and manipulation, as well as event handling, CSS animation, and Ajax.[rx] It is free, open-source software using the permissive MIT License.[rx] As of May 2019, jQuery is used by 73% of the 10 million most popular websites.[rx] Web analysis indicates that it is the most widely deployed JavaScript library by a large margin, having 3 to 4 times more usage than any other JavaScript library.[rx][rx]
jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library. It makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers. With a combination of versatility and extensibility, jQuery has changed the way that millions of people write JavaScript.
Features of jQuery
jQuery includes the following features:
DOM element selections using the multi-browser open source selector engine Sizzle, a spin-off of the jQuery project[rx]
DOM manipulation based on CSS selectors that uses elements’ names and attributes, such as id and class, as criteria to select nodes in the DOM
Events
Effects and animations
Ajax
Deferred and Promise objects to control asynchronous processing
JSON parsing
Extensibility through plug-ins
Utilities, such as feature detection
Compatibility methods that are natively available in modern browsers, but need fallbacks for older browsers, such as jQuery.inArray() and jQuery.each().
Cross-browser support
Functions of jQuery
jQuery provides two kinds of functions, static utility functions and jQuery object methods. Each has its own usage style.
Both are accessed through jQuery’s main identifier: jQuery. This identifier has an alias named $.[rx] All functions can be accessed through either of these two names.
jQuery methods
The jQuery the function is a factory for creating a jQuery object that represents one or more DOM nodes. jQuery objects have methods to manipulate these nodes. These methods (sometimes called commands) are chainable as each method also returns a jQuery object.
Access to and manipulation of multiple DOM nodes in jQuery typically begins with calling the function with a CSS selector string. This returns a jQuery object referencing all the matching elements in the HTML page. $("div.test"), for example, returns a jQuery object with all the div elements of class test. This node set can be manipulated by calling methods on the returned jQuery object.
Static utilities
These are utility functions and do not directly act upon a jQuery object. They are accessed as static methods on the jQuery or $ identifier. For example, $.ajax() is a static method.
No-conflict mode
jQuery provides a $.noConflict() function, which relinquishes control of the name. This is useful if jQuery is used on a Web page also linking another library that demands the $symbol as its identifier. In no-conflict mode, developers can use jQuery as a replacement for $ without losing functionality.[rx]
Typical start-point
Typically, jQuery is used by putting initialization code and event handling functions in $(handler). This is triggered by jQuery when the browser has finished constructing the DOM for the current Web page.
$(function(){// This anonymous function is called when the page has completed loading.// Here, one can place code to create jQuery objects, handle events, etc.});
or
$(fn);// The function named fn, defined elsewhere, is called when the page has loaded.
Historically, $(document).ready(callback) has been the de facto idiom for running code after the DOM is ready. However, since jQuery 3.0, developers are encouraged to use the much shorter $(handler) signature instead.[rx]
Chaining
jQuery object methods typically also return a jQuery object, which enables the use of method chains:
This line finds all div elements with a class attribute test , then registers an event handler on each element for the “click” event, then adds the class attribute foo to each element.
Certain jQuery object methods retrieve specific values (instead of modifying state). An example of this is the val() method, which returns the current value of a text input element. In these cases, a statement such as $('#user-email').val() cannot be used for chaining as the return value does not reference a jQuery object.
Creating new DOM elements
Besides accessing existing DOM nodes through jQuery, it is also possible to create new DOM nodes, if the string passed as the argument to $() factory looks like HTML. For example, the below code finds an HTML select element, and creates a new option element with value “VAG” and label “Volkswagen”, which is then appended to the select menu:
This example posts the data name=John and location=Boston to /process/submit.php on the server. When this request finishes the success function is called to alert the user. If the request fails it will alert the user to the failure, the status of the request, and the specific error.
The above example uses the .then() and .catch() methods to register callbacks that run when the response has completed. These promise callbacks must be used due to the asynchronous nature of Ajax requests.
jQuery Plug-ins
jQuery’s architecture allows developers to create plug-in code to extend its functionality. There are thousands of jQuery plug-ins available on the Web[rx] that cover a range of functions, such as Ajax helpers, Web services, data grids, dynamic lists, XML and XSLT tools, drag and drop, events, cookie handling, and modal windows.
An important source of jQuery plug-ins is the plugins sub-domain of the jQuery Project website.[rx] The plugins in this subdomain, however, were accidentally deleted in December 2011 in an attempt to rid the site of spam.[rx] The new site is a GitHub-hosted repository, which required developers to resubmit their plugins and to conform to new submission requirements.[rx]jQuery provides a “Learning Center” that can help users understand JavaScript and get started developing jQuery plugins.[rx]
MySQL is the most popular Open Source Relational SQL Database Management System. MySQL is one of the best RDBMS being used for developing various web-based software applications. MySQL is developed, marketed and supported by MySQL AB, which is a Swedish company. This tutorial will give you a quick start to MySQL and make you comfortable with MySQL programming.
MySQL is free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License and is also available under a variety of proprietary licenses. MySQL was owned and sponsored by the Swedish company MySQL AB, which was bought by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corporation).[rx] In 2010, when Oracle acquired Sun, Widenius forked the open-source MySQL project to create MariaDB.
MySQL is the world’s most popular open-source database. With its proven performance, reliability and ease-of-use, MySQL has become the leading database choice for web-based applications, covering the entire range from personal projects and websites, via e-commerce and information services, all the way to high profile web properties including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo! and many more.
Example
[stextbox id=’info’]
Try the following example to connect to a MySQL server −
MySQL is a fast, easy-to-use RDBMS being used for many small and big businesses. MySQL is developed, marketed and supported by MySQL AB, which is a Swedish company. MySQL is becoming so popular because of many good reasons −
MySQL is released under an open-source license. So you have nothing to pay to use it.
MySQL is a very powerful program in its own right. It handles a large subset of the functionality of the most expensive and powerful database packages.
MySQL uses a standard form of the well-known SQL data language.
MySQL works on many operating systems and with many languages including PHP, PERL, C, C++, JAVA, etc.
MySQL works very quickly and works well even with large data sets.
MySQL is very friendly to PHP, the most appreciated language for web development.
MySQL supports large databases, up to 50 million rows or more in a table. The default file size limit for a table is 4GB, but you can increase this (if your operating system can handle it) to a theoretical limit of 8 million terabytes (TB).
MySQL is customizable. The open-source GPL license allows programmers to modify the MySQL software to fit their own specific environments.
Many hosting companies offering MySQL hosting with various hosting plans. When choosing a MySQL hosting provider, you do need to consider several additional options beyond the standard features such as MySQL version, MySQL server uptime, backup, bandwidth, and storage:
“Unlimited” MySQL databases with unlimited storage – This feature is very important if you want to scale up your operations and create additional MySQL databases without being charged. You need to do serious research to compare the services of a good number of hosting providers before going forward with the most suitable one.
Database client management tools – To have a good database client management tool is so important because you’ll use it to interact with the MySQL database server on a regular basis. The MySQL client management tools provided by hosting provider must be intuitive and easy to use for DBA and developers who are working often with MySQL. Most hosting companies offer PHPMyAdmin software as a default tool for working with MySQL database server. The PHPMyAdmin tool is free web-based software that allows you to perform various database tasks including executing the query, backing up data, uploading data, etc., so when you choose a hosting provider, make sure that PHPMyAdmin is available.
Secure connection to MySQL server – If your data is sensitive, you need a secure connection to your MySQL server. Ask the hosting provider to provide you with a secure shell (SSH) tunnel.
Regardless of MySQL hosting providers, if you sign up to HostGator, you can be sure that you’ll get very good hosting quality. We have done a lot of serious researches to find the best hosting services based on price, performance, features and support.
Features of MySQL
MySQL is offered under two different editions: the open-source MySQL Community Server and the proprietary Enterprise Server.[rx] MySQL Enterprise Server is differentiated by a series of proprietary extensions which install as server plugins, but otherwise shares the version numbering system and is built from the same code base.
Major features as available in MySQL 5.6
A broad subset of ANSI SQL 99, as well as extensions
Cross-platform support
Stored procedures, using a procedural language that closely adheres to SQL/PSM
Transactions with savepoints when using the default InnoDB Storage Engine. The NDB Cluster Storage Engine also supports transactions.
ACID compliance when using InnoDB and NDB Cluster Storage Engines[rx]
SSL support
Query caching
Sub-SELECTs (i.e. nested SELECTs)
Built-in replication support
Asynchronous replication – master-slave from one master to many slaves[rx][rx] or many masters to one slave[rx]
Semi synchronous replication – Master to slave replication where the master waits on replication[rx][rx]
Synchronous replication – Multi-master replication is provided in MySQL Cluster[rx].
Virtual Synchronous – Self-managed groups of MySQL servers with multi-master support can be done using: Galera Cluster [rx] or the built-in Group Replication plugin[rx]
Full-text indexing and searching
Embedded database library
Unicode support
Partitioned tables with the pruning of partitions in the optimizer
Commit grouping, gathering multiple transactions from multiple connections together to increase the number of commits per second.
The developers release minor updates of the MySQL Server approximately every two months. The sources can be obtained from MySQL’s website or from MySQL’s GitHub repository, both under the GPL license.
Functions of MySQL
WordPress requires MySQL – to store and retrieve all of its data including post content, user profiles, and custom post types. Most web hosting providers already have MySQL installed on their web servers as it is widely used in many open source web applications such as WordPress.
WordPress uses the PHP programming language – to store and retrieve data from the MySQL database. To retrieve data from the database, WordPress runs SQL queries to dynamically generate content. SQL stands for Structured Query Language and is the programming language typically used to query databases.
For users that are not comfortable writing their own PHP and SQL scripts – most web hosting providers offer easy to use web applications to manage databases. One such web application is phpMyAdmin which allows users to manage their database using a web-based graphical interface. You can manipulate your tables visually while phpMyAdmin runs the SQL queries for you.
Here is the list of all important MySQL functions. Each function has been explained along with a suitable example.
MySQL Group By Clause − The MySQL GROUP BY statement is used along with the SQL aggregate functions like SUM to provide means of grouping the result dataset by certain database table column(s).
MySQL IN Clause − This is a clause, which can be used along with any MySQL query to specify a condition.
MySQL BETWEEN Clause − This is a clause, which can be used along with any MySQL query to specify a condition.
MySQL UNION Keyword − Use a UNION operation to combine multiple result sets into one.
MySQL COUNT Function − The MySQL COUNT aggregate function is used to count the number of rows in a database table.
MySQL MAX Function − The MySQL MAX aggregate function allows us to select the highest (maximum) value for a certain column.
MySQL MIN Function − The MySQL MIN aggregate function allows us to select the lowest (minimum) value for a certain column.
MySQL AVG Function − The MySQL AVG aggregate function selects the average value for a certain table column.
MySQL SUM Function − The MySQL SUM aggregate function allows selecting the total for a numeric column.
MySQL SQRT Functions − This is used to generate a square root of a given number.
MySQL RAND Function − This is used to generate a random number using MySQL command.
MySQL CONCAT Function − This is used to concatenate any string inside any MySQL command.
MySQL DATE and Time Functions − Complete list of MySQL Date and Time-related functions.
MySQL Numeric Functions − Complete list of MySQL functions required to manipulate numbers in MySQL.
MySQL String Functions − Complete list of MySQL functions required to manipulate strings in MySQL.
Hypertext Preprocessor/ PHP(or simply PHP) is a general-purpose programming language originally designed for web development. It was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994;[6] the PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group.[7] PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page,[6] but it now stands for the recursive initialism PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.[8]
PHP code may be executed with a command-line interface (CLI), embedded into HTML code, or used in combination with various web template systems, web content management systems, and web frameworks. PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter implemented as a module in a web server or as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable.
PHP Example
In this tutorial, you will get a lot of PHP examples to understand the topic well. You must save the PHP file with a .php extension. Let’s see a simple PHP example.
File: hello.php
<!DOCTYPE>
<html>
<body>
<?php
echo “<h2>Hello by PHP</h2>“;
?>
</body>
</html>
PHP Variable Types
The main way to store information in the middle of a PHP program is by using a variable.
Here are the most important things to know about variables in PHP.
All variables in PHP are denoted with a leading dollar sign ($).
The value of a variable is the value of its most recent assignment.
Variables are assigned with the = operator, with the variable on the left-hand side and the expression to be evaluated on the right.
Variables can but do not need, to be declared before assignment.
Variables in PHP do not have intrinsic types – a variable does not know in advance whether it will be used to store a number or a string of characters.
Variables used before they are assigned have default values.
PHP does a good job of automatically converting types from one to another when necessary.
PHP variables are Perl-like.
PHP has a total of eight data types which we use to construct our variables −
Integers − are whole numbers, without a decimal point, like 4195.
Doubles − are floating-point numbers, like 3.14159 or 49.1.
Booleans − have only two possible values either true or false.
NULL − is a special type that only has one value: NULL.
Strings − are sequences of characters, like ‘PHP supports string operations.’
Arrays − are named and indexed collections of other values.
Objects − are instances of programmer-defined classes, which can package up both other kinds of values and functions that are specific to the class.
Resources − are special variables that hold references to resources external to PHP (such as database connections).
The PHP team is glad to announce the first beta release of PHP 7.4: PHP 7.4.0beta1. This continues the PHP 7.4 release cycle, the rough outline of which is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.4.0beta1 please visit the download page.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
Please DO NOT use this version in production, it is an early test version.
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Beta 2, planned for August 8th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the third PHP 7.4.0 version, PHP 7.4.0 Alpha 3. This continues the PHP 7.4 release cycle, the rough outline of which is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.4.0 Alpha 3 please visit the download page.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
Please DO NOT use this version in production, it is an early test version.
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Beta 1, planned for July 25th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the second PHP 7.4.0 version, PHP 7.4.0 Alpha 2. This continues the PHP 7.4 release cycle, the rough outline of which is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.4.0 Alpha 2 please visit the download page.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
Please DO NOT use this version in production, it is an early test version.
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Alpha 3, planned for July 11th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the first PHP 7.4.0 version, PHP 7.4.0 Alpha 1. This starts the PHP 7.4 release cycle, the rough outline of which is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.4.0 Alpha 1 please visit the download page.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
Please DO NOT use this version in production, it is an early test version.
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Alpha 2, planned for June 27.
The PHP team is glad to announce the presumably last PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC6. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC6 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be 7.3.0 (GA), planned for December 6th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the next PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC5. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC5 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be RC6, planned for November 22nd.
The PHP team is glad to announce the next PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC4. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC4 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be RC5, planned for November 8th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the next PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC3. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC3 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be RC4, planned for October 25th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the next PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC2. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC2 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be RC3, planned for October 11th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the next PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC1. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC1 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be RC2, planned for September 27th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the seventh PHP 7.3.0 version, PHP 7.3.0beta3. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0beta3 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be RC1, planned for September 13th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the sixth PHP 7.3.0 version, PHP 7.3.0beta2. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0beta2 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Beta 3, planned for August 30th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the fifth PHP 7.3.0 version, PHP 7.3.0beta1. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0beta1 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Beta 2, planned for August 16th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the fourth PHP 7.3.0 version, PHP 7.3.0alpha4. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0alpha4 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Beta 1, planned for August 2nd.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the third PHP 7.3.0 version, PHP 7.3.0 Alpha 3. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0 Alpha 3 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Beta 1, planned for July 19th.
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the second PHP 7.3.0 version, PHP 7.3.0 Alpha 2. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0 Alpha 2 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Alpha 3, planned for July 5
The PHP team is glad to announce the release of the first PHP 7.3.0 version, PHP 7.3.0 Alpha 1. This starts the PHP 7.3 release cycle, the rough outline of which is specified in the PHP Wiki.
For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0 Alpha 1 please visit the download page.
Please carefully test this version and report any issues found in the bug reporting system.
Please DO NOT use this version in production, it is an early test version.
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
The next release would be Alpha 2, planned for June 21.
The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.2.0 RC4. This release is the fourth Release Candidate for 7.2.0. All users of PHP are encouraged to test this version carefully, and report any bugs and incompatibilities in the bug tracking system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
For source downloads of PHP 7.2.0 Release Candidate 4 please visit the download page, Windows sources and binaries can be found atwindows.php.net/qa/.
The next Release Candidate will be announced on the 26th of October. You can also read the full list of planned releases on our wiki.
The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.2.0 RC3. This release is the third Release Candidate for 7.2.0. All users of PHP are encouraged to test this version carefully, and report any bugs and incompatibilities in the bug tracking system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
For source downloads of PHP 7.2.0 Release Candidate 3 please visit the download page, Windows sources and binaries can be found atwindows.php.net/qa/.
The next Release Candidate will be announced on the 12th of October. You can also read the full list of planned releases on our wiki.
The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.2.0 Release Candidate 1. This release is the first Release Candidate for 7.2.0. All users of PHP are encouraged to test this version carefully, and report any bugs and incompatibilities in the bug tracking system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
For source downloads of PHP 7.2.0 Release Candidate 1 please visit the download page, Windows sources and binaries can be found atwindows.php.net/qa/.
The second Release Candidate will be released on the 14th of September. You can also read the full list of planned releases on our wiki.
The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.2.0 Beta 3. This release is the third and final beta for 7.2.0. All users of PHP are encouraged to test this version carefully, and report any bugs and incompatibilities in the bug tracking system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
For source downloads of PHP 7.2.0 Beta 3 please visit the download page, Windows sources and binaries can be found atwindows.php.net/qa/.
The first Release Candidate will be released on the 31th of August. You can also read the full list of planned releases on our wiki.
The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.2.0 Alpha 3. This release contains fixes and improvements relative to Alpha 2. All users of PHP are encouraged to test this version carefully, and report any bugs and incompatibilities in the bug tracking system.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT PREVIEW – DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION!
For information on new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. These files can also be found in the release archive.
For source downloads of PHP 7.2.0 Alpha 3 please visit the download page, Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.
1 <?php 2 abstractclassUser{ 3 publicstring$name; 4 5 publicfunction__construct(string$name){ 6 $this->name=$name; 7 } 8 9 publicfunctiongreet():string{10 return"Hello, my name is ".$this->name;11 }12 13 abstractpublicfunctionjob():string;14 }15 16 classStudentextendsUser{17 publicstring$course;18 19 publicfunction__construct(string$name,string$course){20 $this->course=$course;21 parent::__construct($name);22 }23 24 publicfunctionjob():string{25 return"I learn ".$this->course;26 }27 }28 29 classTeacherextendsUser{30 publicarray$teachingCourses;31 32 publicfunction__construct(string$name,string...$teachingCourses){33 $this->teachingCourses=$teachingCourses;34 parent::__construct($name);35 }36 37 publicfunctionjob():string{38 return"I teach ".implode(", ",$this->teachingCourses);39 }40 }41 42 $students=[43 newStudent("Alice","Computer Science"),44 newStudent("Bob","Computer Science"),45 newStudent("Charlie","Business Studies"),46 ];47 $teachers=[48 newTeacher("Dan","Computer Science","Information Security"),49 newTeacher("Erin","Computer Science","3D Graphics Programming"),50 newTeacher("Frankie","Online Marketing","Business Studies","E-commerce"),51 ];52 53 echo"Students: n";54 foreach($studentsas$student){55 echo$student->greet().", ".$student->job()."n";56 }57 58 echo"Teachers: n";59 foreach($teachersas$teacher){60 echo$teacher->greet().", ".$teacher->job()."n";61 }62 63 // Output of program:64 // Students:65 // Hello, my name is Alice, I learn Computer Science66 // Hello, my name is Bob, I learn Computer Science67 // Hello, my name is Charlie, I learn Business Studies68 // Teachers:69 // Hello, my name is Dan, I teach Computer Science, Information Security70 // Hello, my name is Erin, I teach Computer Science, 3D Graphics Programming71 // Hello, my name is Frankie, I teach Online Marketing, Business Studies, E-commerce
Functions of PHP
PHP defines a large array of functions in the core language and many are also available in various extensions; these functions are well documented in the online PHP documentation.[rx]However, the built-in library has a wide variety of naming conventions and associated inconsistencies, as described under history above.
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to server-side web development, in which case PHP generally runs on a web server. Any PHP code in a requested file is executed by the PHP runtime, usually to create dynamic web page content or dynamic images used on websites or elsewhere.[rx] It can also be used for command-line scripting and client-side graphical user interface (GUI) applications. PHP can be deployed on most web servers, many operating systems and platforms, and can be used with many relational database management systems (RDBMS). Most web hosting providers support PHP for use by their clients. It is available free of charge, and the PHP Group provides the complete source code for users to build, customize and extend for their own use.[rx]
Dynamic web page: example of server-side scripting (PHP and MySQL).
PHP acts primarily as a filter,taking input from a file or stream containing text and/or PHP instructions and outputting another stream of data. Most commonly the output will be HTML, although it could be JSON, XML or binary data such as image or audio formats. Since PHP 4, the PHP parser compiles input to produce bytecode for processing by the Zend Engine, giving improved performance over its interpreter predecessor.[rx]
