a constant question which has no straight answer, should you cache your wordpress pages/posts?
what means caching pages?
in modern PHP terms, all pages are build dynamically on the fly, html is static and doesn’t need any further processing, just fetching the images, that is fast … php by design is different, but there are at least 80% of all pages which are not exactly having dynamic content, e.g. a post, you compose it and post it, then it is there as is, seldom this content is changed, so it makes sense to cache it so that the server doesn’t need to compile the page for every single access and serve it directly as static content from cache, that is the reason that our S-Cache plugin offers caching of pages and posts, you can disable page caching if your pages are constantly changing, e.g. the home page shows the latest posts, in order to serve an always updated page you shouldn’t cache it, but the posts you should
then let’s split the line, we have to consider various aspects, there is the server performance, processing power and disk performance, then there is the client capacity and its bandwidth, then there is the code of each page, several other issues can influence the decision
a sanitized answer would be, if you want no problems, don’t cache … but problems are not always problems, they just need to be addressed accordingly in order not to create problems
difficulties arise by the fact that any service provider is caching, there are even special cache services for mobil devices in the middle, that is a problem, all of them are transparent cache mechanisms and there is no easy way to filter out or test them, another issue is the browser’s cache and eventual data-save-processing options
after knowing all that we can say again, there is no clear answer and you need to check it out, enable the cache service and see what comes out, don’t forget to check with several browsers, at least Chrome, Brave, Firefox should be on your list
next doubt is cache age, how long until a cached object should be refreshed? if your content doesn’t change very often you can set a high value like 28800 or even higher, that are seconds or 8 hours, 3600 would be 60 minutes … and the we are again at the point, there is no straight answer, you need to check it out …
so then, all this testing is it worth it?
again, up to you to decide, set 3600s and enable cache, test it, if it is notably faster than without cache, then you should say yes, go into fine tuning and find the best setting for your site
have a look at our wpHakka Simple Cache page and see what we have to offer
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