Cache plugins suck!

Do you ever wonder why cache plugins suck?

Truth is, they don’t.

It’s your understanding of them that ‘sucks’.

Before you get all defensive and angry, please understand that some tools require a bit of skill and knowledge to use. I feel the same when I hear someone say “WordPress sucks”. No, it doesn’t. You just have to take the time. And if you keep trying and trying and things still break, there’s a good chance you’re the one that doesn’t know what he (or she) is doing. Unfortunately, not all tools can be made to be noob friendly.

Why don’t you sit back, relax, hire a developer for one hour of their time to configure for you? Have them show you some things in the process so you can enjoy life and not go around spreading misinformation.

Still want to argue with me about why cache plugins suck?

“Cache plugins broke my site!”

• You mean your page design looks weird, fonts or images missing? – Stop combining/merging your CSS and Javascript.
• Your site stopped loading and/or you get a blank white screen? – Looks like default settings didn’t work. Try changing them to something else, and unchecking all non-essential features. (Btw, if you were the one blindly checking every feature, then it’s YOUR fault!)

“Cache plugins didn’t speed up my site!”

• Are you sure the configurations are correct?
• Do you have any experience setting up cache plugins? If not, did you follow an updated guide? If so, are you sure the website and web-server used in the guide closely matches yours?
• Are you sure you’re using a reputable cache plugin?

“Cache plugins create all kinds of problems!”

• Did you something stop working right? – perhaps you should disable some of the features. Might also help to exclude certain elements from caching.

“Cache plugins didn’t improve my pagespeed score!”

• Believe it or not, pagespeed scores are one of the most commonly misinterpreted things on the internet. They’re actually only a guideline for ideal web performance, not the rule. (Basically, you can have an incredibly fast website and still horrible scores. The biggest mistake would be optimizing for scores, and not for real users.)
• Are the complaint metrics related to 3rd party requests? (Loading from other domains like Google, or some plugin servers or chat service.) If so you, cache plugins cannot improve that since they’re aren’t loading from your website or web-servers.