UPDATE: W3 Total Cache 0.9 has been released and it’s got a different interface. Do please check out Making Blogs Faster With W3 Total Cache 0.9 when you’re through reading this tutorial.
The web is agog with news that if your site has a slow loading time, your search engine ranking could be affected and despite Google’s claim that this will only affect just less than 1% of sites, most bloggers aren’t taking chances and have started running to wordpress cache plug-ins to help them achieve faster blog/site load times.
Justin Germino of Dragon Blogger tried out W3 Total Cache and the experience kind of left him burnt as he writes in “Increasing WordPress Page Load Performance Can Backfire“. Apparently neither WP-Super Cache nor W3 Total Cache works just right on his blog.
I’ve been using W3 Total Cache for months now and it’s been nothing but marvelous to me.
I must admit though that the plug-in can be quite tricky for the technologically disadvantaged but once it’s been configured as should be, it works wonders 
.
Depending on the settings you make use of, you could experience a rough time as did Justin thus I’ve decided to share with you my W3 Total Cache configuration settings in hope that it would help you speed up your blog
Disclaimer: This tutorial are provided as it is. I shall take no responsibility for any mishap that may befall your blog/site during its implementation. The configuration settings below work just fine for me and hopefully will work for you too
HOW TO CONFIGURE W3 TOTAL CACHE IN A SHARED HOSTING ENVIRONMENT
To make this as easy to understand as possible, I’ll be making use of plenty of images so do please bear with me.
STEP 1
Log on to your WordPress Admin area, Click on Add New under Plug-ins and search for “W3 Total Cache” then install it. As an alternative, you might want to download it from the plug-in site.
Once you’re through with the installation, activate it and go to W3 Total Cache under Settings in your admin dashboard. From here onwards the configurations begin
STEP 2
Simply tick or mark as shown in the images below
Under W3 Total Cache General Settings
Note: Remember to save all your changes
Note: Since I’m using a sub domain of StrictlyOnlineBiz as my CDN, I’m using the self hosted/FTP upload option. This way you save yourself the extra cost of using a paid CDN like Amazon Cloudfront or S3
Under W3 Total Cache Page Cache Settings
NOTE: Under the Rejected User Agents list as indicated above, copy and paste the entire list contained in this text file.
As you might have noticed, the Mobile user agents box was left blank as it created conflicts with my wordpress mobile plug-in. All the Mobile user agents were transferred to the Rejected User Agents list thus pages are not cached for mobile visitors.
Redirect mobile users to is left blank as I don’t have a separate domain for the mobile version of StrictlyOnlineBiz.
Under W3 Total Cache Minify Settings
NOTE: The first time I tried my hands @ minifying my Javascripts and Cascading Style Sheets, the plug-in messed up my blog so I decided to not configure it. The minifying component probably now works well with the new version of the plug-in but I’m yet to give it a try. When I do and it works, I’ll write an update
This is what my W3 Total Cache Minify Settings look like @ the moment.
Under W3 Total Cache Database Caching Settings
Under W3 Total Cache CDN Settings
Since we are using a sub domain as our CDN, configure this section as shown below
Here’s how to setup a subdomain CDN via CPanel.
After saving the changes, click on Test FTP Server and if everything works just fine, you’ll get this message thrown back @ you.
Advanced W3 Total Cache Settings
NOTE: Copy and paste from this text file, to fill in the wp-includes file types to upload, Theme file types to upload and File types to import fields. Save your changes when you’re through.
Once you’re through with the three stages of the CDN settings page and have saved all changes made, proceed to first stage and start uploading files by clicking on upload include files, upload theme files, upload minify files and upload custom files.
When you’re through with that, proceed to export media library to CDN (This will send all images included in your blog posts to your CDN) and import attachments into the Media library (I’m not sure about this one but I think if your blog posts have got attachments, they’ll all be sent to the CDN as well)
THAT’S ALL FOLKS! So there you have it. Once you’re done, empty all your cache, log out and start browsing pages on your site. To make sure W3 Total Cache is working, check a page twice then view the page source by right clicking on the page on selecting View Page Source in your browser. If W3 Total Cache is working just fine, you should see something like this @ the end of the source code of that page
Best of luck guys !
UPDATE: I’ve written an update to this tutorial. Do check it out @ Quick Update: Making Blogs Faster With W3 Total Cache. It promises to make your blog load an additional 10x faster
Do you use a shared hosting provider, VPS or dedicated Hosting? I have done all that you see here and performance snagged on HostMonster.
I was actually going to test some other tricks mentioned on this blog post as well, let me know if you have reviewed and looked at this: http://zemalf.com/1343/htaccess-rules-for-site-speed/
It is a kind of manual way to cache without a plug-in
.-= Dragon Blogger hopes you will read…Blu Ray Expands to 128 Gigabyte Capacity =-.
I’m using Hostgator’s hatchling plan which is shared hosting. Who knows maybe it’s just the way HostMonster servers are configured. I’ve been quite fortunate that most of my plug-ins work amazing well with Hostgator shared hosting servers.
I’ll review Zemalf’s post and get back at ya
I just checked it out and it’s SCARY. I’ve played with my .htaccess before BUT what Zemalf is talking about is too technical for me and I wouldn’t recommend it to a novice as sh*t could happen to their blog/server.
Thanks for sharing this information. I was having some issue with my blog and my webhost recommended that I use a wordpress cache plugin. I was first installed Wp Super Cache but did not notice any serious improvement, but after reading your recommendation, I decided to give W3 Total Cache Plugin a trial. Well, I’m happy to say that it works fine. My pages now loads faster.
Thanks for sharing.
.-= Nigerian Entrepreneur hopes you will read…New Premium WordPress Theme For Nigerian Entrepreneur =-.
Thanks for the feedback. At least I’ve achieved in a little way, the aim of this blog post: To help make the internet faster. lol
Wp Super Cache is a great plug-in but the lack of CDN function was why I moved to W3 Total Cache.
A year ago, way before Google announced this, because I was using an awful hosting service I used every plugin I could that would speedup my loading times.
Most were rather easy to install. However, there were problems with caching: at times comments & changes I made took quite a while to reflect. Other times I didn’t really notice a speed improvement.
So right now I’m not using anything. If I notice a deterioration in my ranking, I’ll reconsider. But until then, I don’t consider it worth the extra problems.
.-= Udi hopes you will read…The Prehistoric Times of Social Media =-.
I’m using Opera 10.53 with it’s turbo feature so I really wouldn’t know if your site is slow. It is true that sometimes these plug-ins do the opposite and could slow down your blog BUT I believe it all comes down to your server settings/configurations.
I have tried both plugins, I had one problem with W3 plugin when one of blog posts popped on the first page of Digg, the site was not performing well, so I quickly went back to Super Cash on that day and it was working better, don’t take my words as a law, I am on BlueHost shared hosting, and I know that W3 is used by monster website that has tons of daily traffic, but all these sites are actually on dedicated servers, so.. I think being on shared hosting is the main problem!
I probably will give it another try next month, I am organizing a big blogging contest and I am expecting increasing on the traffic onf my blog during the contest, and it’s the best time to make another test
I didn’t see a good tut like this one anywhere before, thank you Udegbunam for the good share!
.-= Hesham @ How to Blog hopes you will read…This is How Powerful Bloggers Schedule Successful Blogs =-.
Thanks for the compliments. This tutorial kinda took over an hour to draft but as I can see it’s TOTALLY worth it! I’ve been having some conversations with the author of the plug-in via twitter (http://www.twitter.com/w3edge) and I’m trying out the gzip functionality to see it slows things down as Hostgator claims. In the mean time, Hostgator says they are running tests again to see the effect of using mod_gzip on their shared hosting servers.
Do please keep me informed when you run your own test again. I’d love to hear from you again.
Thanks for taking time to stop by and for submitting the post to your MMO Social Network.
Cheers
Nice tutorial! I’m going to give it a try. But you can also reduce your page load time configuring your site properly. As example: 1. Use plugin as less as possible 2: If you have a retweet button in your page then try to install it manually. The Tweetmeme() plugin prevents your pages from loading faster. 2: Avoid Contact page 7 plugin and create a contact page manually for your site. 3: Host images of your site in a subdomain.
Thanks for the tips. I stopped using Contact Form 7 long time ago after discovering Wp-Spam Free which comes with an added contact form. At this moment most images on my site are hosted on my subdomain (CDN)
.
Sure Udegbunam, I will let you know if I had a chance to give it another try, thanks a lot!
I did try it on my blog but only the basic settings and yes I disable WP cache first
Strangely enough my adsense ads disappeared and speed wasn’t improved so I reverted to my old plugin.
.-= Sire hopes you will read…How Would You Like To Win An Apple iPad? =-.
If you were serving your adsense ads via a plug-in, it could be that the plug-in wasn’t compatible with W3 Total Cache thus the ads simply stopped loading. I’m loading adsense without a plug-in and it works just fine
Nope, I posted the adsense code in the theme widget. The one served by the plugin still worked.
.-= Sire hopes you will read…Cool Blog Links Top 10 Coolest Blogs =-.
Strange! I never had the same problem here.
I had the same problem with another plugin that was supposed to remove spaces and such from .php files etc. so perhaps it was that part of the plugin that was causing the problem.
.-= Sire hopes you will read…The Need For Speed Computer Style =-.
It’s most likely the plug-in in question cos I’ve got quite an array of plug-ins
installed here and no conflict has arisen since W3 Total Cache went live here 
What’s the name of the plug-in? I’d love to see it I can recreate the problem on localhost.
Sire, that “remove spaces” would say you had a hiccup with the “minify” plugin which is sorta built into this one so when you set w3totalcache up again, do not enable minify until you have everything else working since you obviously have some sort of something conflicting. I’m just not really sure what you would have messing with minify unless something in your code isnt’ actually cleanly coded and that makes two “expressions” overlap or something that just shouldn’t. Very odd.
Kimberly
Sorry, I wish I could remember but I deleted it after it wouldn’t work. They say it’s best to do that for security reasons rather than just uninstalling it.
What I may do when I have some time is try W3 again but this time configuring it the way you have it set up here to see if that makes a difference.
.-= Sire hopes you will read…Does Your Blog Provide Value To Your Readers? =-.
Okay then. Do please keep me posted when you do so that if it makes a difference on your blog as well, I’ll know how hard to promote this post around the web
I can help with that. I just gave this post a tweet. Don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.
.-= Sire hopes you will read…You Can’t Please Everyone So Stop Trying =-.
Gracias
. The gesture is highly appreciated 
Great article. I will try it out and let you know how it goes on my blog. At the moment the load speed is not very encouraging.
Stay tuned for updates. I’ve discovered even more ways to make it a lot more faster and get better YSlow and PageSpeed scores. Do let me know how these present settings work out for you. Cheers
Great. It is installed and working now on my blog, so we just have to wait and see. Do you have any idea when I will start noticing changes in the PageSpeed scores etc. and any news yet from Hostgator regarding gzip?
No news yet from Hostgator regarding their testing gzip but I would have you know that after a series of conversation with the author of W3 Total Cache, I activated gzip, made some modifications to my htaccess and it’s working just fine. I’ll be writing an update to this post soon on how to achieve greater speeds with this plug-in.
BTW you could monitor changes in your blog load time through Google Webmasters Tool under Labs then site performance
. Mine is down to 5.9seconds as @ June 3, 2010
Again,
Thank you for the ‘how to’! I needed to configure the W3TC as well! Now, for the other options; I left the CDN in default mode since I rarely make use of my FTP program. So this is ok as it is, correct?
Again, thank you!
AIDY
If your site doesn’t make use of plenty of images, you’d be just fine without the CDN
What was it originally i.e. before you started using W3 Total Cache?
If memory serves me right, I was fluctuating between 20 to 45 seconds.
Great post…I will refer back to this sometime soon, as I am only starting out with WP. So keep the info coming
Good effort!
Thanks, my blog now loads super fast, I am indebted to you and this wonderful plugin, thanks
Anytime
thanks for the info, before i read this, my w3 configuration was not compatible with opera browser
I wasn’t aware that the W3 Total Cache configuration could cause compatibility issues with browsers. Thanks for pointing that out and I hope your site now functions excellently well with the plug-in
Adding rules to .htaccess is not scary when you have simple instructions what I have in my post
But the .htaccess rules are not there to replace what W3 Total Cache does, but complement it. In fact, W3TC sets its own .htaccess -files based on its settings, which take care of caching and such for html, js and css.
@Dragon Blogger, W3 Total Cache should work on any hosting, but make sure you have the database cache off (not disk), that’s probably causing some issues. And also, if the host does not have mod_deflate (bad host!), the “advanced disk caching” settings do not work.
But if a host cannot handle best performance improving plugin there is for WordPress, what can it handle? Some hosts just aren’t made for WordPress.
In all honesty, if a shared host cannot handle properly configured W3 Total Cache, I’d be switching hosts faster than W3 Total Cache makes my blog
if a shared host cannot handle properly configured W3 Total Cache, I’d be switching hosts faster than W3 Total Cache makes my blog ROFLMAO.
I’m on Hostgator’s shared hosting plan and after reading your post; .htaccess rules for site speed optimization, weeks back, I discovered that mod_deflate and mod_gzip were not activated on my server.
Frederick Townes told me it didn’t matter @ all and that I should go on and activate W3 Total Cache’s gzip function. Surprisingly it worked and sill works ;=)
I used to use Super cache plugin, after some research found out W3 Total Cache had CDN for self hosted content..so switched to it, I’m on Bluehost and my blog is an addon domain & nt the main domain of the host, so I can’t obtain cdn@dailyblogging.org kind of FTP Hostname, can u guide me how to setup the CDN settings on such a thing ?
Unfortunately I don’t have addon domains activated on my hosting account. I would have created a tutorial on creating a CDN on an addon domain.
However I do believe that this tutorial should be able to help you out: http://www.strictlyonlinebiz.com/blog/create-subdomain-cpanel/1341/.
To setup cdn.dailyblogging.org, under Subdomain type in cdn then from the drop down menu select dailyblogging.org amongst your list of available domain names.
Do please let me know if this helps
. Cheers.
Thanks for the quick reply, though I know how to create Subdomains, but in Bluehost it doesn’t allow me to create FTP for individual domains, it allows us to create FTP for root domains (only one) and set access to my site. Hope you got my problem & a solution
I now understand and the solution is quite simple.
All you have to do is under FTP Path specify the path to the folder corresponding to your cdn subdomain and you’re done. Example: public_html/cdn/
I tried that, but it still did’nt work
Also to tell you My ftp server link is http://ftp.rootdomain.com not http://ftp.dailyblogging.org So If you find a fix plz reply !
What exactly is the FTP path to the cdn subdomain folder? If you can’t figure that out, kindly contact BlueHost to help you out. You can upload files to that subdomain using your main ftp account.
The last time I fooled around with my htaccess, my blog shut down and I never knew until I got an email from a friend asking why my site was down.
That has happened to me so many times in the past
Hi!
Thanks so much for the fab tutorial! The only thing though is I’m not getting the Served by W3 message in my source code like your tutorial says. I’m not sure whether it’s working or not. Can you tell if it is? Thanks so much!
You seem to have the debug mode options like Minify and Page Cache enabled. Try deactivating that and see if you get the Served by W3 Total Cache message.
Great article! Without this tutorial, I couldnt configure W3 Total Cahche especially FTP settings.
Thank you!
Glad my article was of great help
This tutorial has been very helpful thus far, but I’m stuck at configuring self-hosting CDN. I’ve set up a subdomain on my shared host (JustHost) and enabled FTP access with password.
I’m getting the Error: Unable to change directory to: /public_html/static/files.
I’m confused about what to put in:
FTP Hostname
FTP path
Replace site’s hostname with
Any help will be much appreciated!
What’s the URL of your cdn subdomain?
I solved it by leaving FTP path blank.
Okay
The problem I’m having now is that NextGEN gallery image rotator is nor working with W3TC enabled.
I have absolutely no experience with NextGEN gallery image rotator so I suggest you use the wordpress support forum to get across to Frederick Townes and see what he has to say
I am trying to use CDN but now i will use self hosted CDN as explained here… will see how much my site load time will improve.
Hope it works out well for you as it does for me. Remember that speed also depends on the quality of the server on which your site is hosted
.
nice article, Im new, but trying to figure out what CDN is. I have shared hosting, Lets say my site is http://www.abc.com, would I set up CDN on http://www.abc.com/cdn?
and if so, I dont get why that woudl make the images download faster? The page still has to load them right? or is it just that since its coming from two locations, it allows to do it simultaneously?
Im just trying to understand.
thanks.
Thanks for dropping in and leaving a comment. When it comes to creating a CDN on shared hosting, it MUST be on a subdomain and not the top domain of your site. Example http://www.abc.com should have it’s subdomain as http://cdn.abc.com.
CDNs can NEVER work as subfolders.
Hope this answers your question. Cheers
oh ok thanks for the reply. I just needed to be certain.
nice job helped alot, now my site is supper fast.
glad my lil tutorial served you well
wow thanks i solve my problem
You’re welcome
.
Hi.
I am very new to this and might be asking stupid question, beware
I am using Hostgator shared hosting (Hatchling).
I do not have CDN as you said.
Now what are the settings I should make. Which steps I should ignore?
Steps seems to be complex for me
You shouldn’t ignore any of the steps and this is as easy as it gets. You would never find a tutorial easier than this except it was a video. I also using Hatchling
Hey, Your artucle has been really helpful.
However i’m having a lil issue at hand, the “Self hosted / FTP Upload” is grayed out and cannot be selected.
I’ve only got the SSL option on the CDN Settings page
Thanks
That’s strange. My SSL option is set to Auto. I recommend you delete and reinstall the plug-in to see if this fixes the problem. If it doesn’t, please contact Frederick via the WordPress Support Forums
Thanks for the quick response,
And Yes, I Do have the SLL set on auto, but there’s no option for “Self hosted / FTP Upload”
check the print-screen: http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3577/picth.jpg
who do you reckon?
Thanks in advance
Sorry man but the image ain’t big enough and I can’t see a thing. I’ve got a visual problem
my bad…
i’ve uploaded two bigger images
W3T general settings – http://tommiekiddy.com/blog/cdn_general.png
cdn settings – http://tommiekiddy.com/blog/cdn_settings.png
thanks for checking
Hmm. Judging from your CDN settings capture, it looks like you are using a different version of w3 total cache. The current version is 0.9.1.3. Please make sure you’re using that version which can also be downloaded @ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/.
If you are using the current version, delete and reinstall it again.
thanks again for your time…
I’ve checked the version, and im using the latest version (0.9.1.3)
I deactivated the plugin, uninstalled it… then i downloaded it to manually on the CPanel and installed it, however i’m still getting the same result (same CDN Settings)
Man, I think it’s time you contact Frederick Townes the developer. He should be in a better place to know what’s wrong than I am. Do please let me know how it goes and sorry I really couldn’t be of help
I want to make my site faster. Will you do the job for a fee?
I’ll do it for free
. BUT I suggest you try doing it yourself first using the details in this tutorial 
thanks a lot man, glad you took your time to look into it.. much appreciated
I am having problem with the possible conflict between Google Analytics and W3 Total Cache Minify settings…
I noticed that with the HTML and Js minify settings enabled…the google analytics code was completely taken off…Also the code of extreme Tracking code stopped working.
So eventually i disabled Html and and Js minify settings…
Will it have any big impact if above two are disabled?
Should i disable only just Js minify settings and keep html Minify settings enabled?
W3 Total Cache’s minify engine doesn’t work for me so I don’t use it. Also it’s bad to minify Google Analytics and Adsense scripts as that would screw them them up. I suggest you minify your scripts using another means/plugins.
By the way, with regards to your last question, disable css and js minify and leave HTML minify enabled.
Well thanks for your previous response…Now i have disabled Minify settings totally, but still the google analytics which was working previously is not working..I added the new code couple of hours back..just above the closing , but still its not being detected.
After adding the code back manually, did you bother emptying all your cache? Your blog might still be showing old cached files/pages without the Google analytics code.
Well mate…it did detect the google analytic code but after caching 4 entries..it stopped caching again….No idea what has gone wrong….
Now i am having a new issue mate..
My previous Permalink structure was
/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
Eg http://www.euromatinee.com/2010/12/01/shanghai-baby-2007/
Then i changed the structure to /%postname%/
so i edited the old permalink manually and now it looks like(added the word dvdrip)
http://www.euromatinee.com/shanghai-baby-2007-dvdrip/
This is what i did for 10 posts of mine…now when i am searching in google…i can see that for some posts i can see the 404 error and for some posts i can see the changed permalink structure is being detected by google…Can you please suggest me…what should i do do get rid of the 404 error
I use permalink redirect to fix such problems on this blog. So far so good it works. Here’s the link http://scott.yang.id.au/code/permalink-redirect/. Feel free holla if you encounter any problems.
Thanks mate…i am able to fix the Permalink problem..my website is 6days old and im getting around 100 visitors daily…But the google analytic is still not working and im clueless….it was just showing receiving data symbol…but it was not really updating…so i deleted the profile and created a new profile…now its showing that unknown tracker symbol….please help me mate….what is your email account or do u use any IM?
Good to know that the permalink issue has been resolved. Wish I could help you with the Google Analytics thingy but I’m kinda clueless as to what could be the problem. You could mail me via the contact form if you like and we’d take it from there.
Thanks again Chuks, I will do the installation right away.
Please, could you help me, how do I make screen shots like the ones you use on blogs?
I’m using FastStone Capture software.
i have done all as you taught but i got this message Unable to change directory to: /public_html/static/.
i chosen static sub domain as my cdn
Can you upload a screen capture of the error message you got and of your cdn settings?
Thanx now my blog is working properly and fine.
I am a newbie and i was don’t know hwow to use it.now i am expert in it
You’re most welcome
I get ‘wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/page.gif Unable to connect’ and i’m also not able to upload minify files. it just stays there
The minify function doesn’t work on my blog thus I don’t use it. I really don’t know why you are getting that error. Try reuploading wp-includes to your cdn again.
have you noticed if using the subdomain cause a considerable increase in speed?
I am at it right away, thanks to your linked post on how to set it up…
Yep. I’ve noticed a considerable speed increase.
Thanks for this resourceful post!
This tutorial is amazing! I doubted it @ first since the definition of CDN makes it sound like it is a network of servers dishing out content and the server closest to the reader dishes it out. cdn-content distribution NETWORK(of servers, right?) But doing this has took my load time from 3.2 seconds on average to under a half a second.
I am about to add a couple more sub domains. 1 for js, 1 for css 1 for images, 1 for theme files to try to bring the load time a little bit more.
if u accept donations let me know as i was about to get vps or cloud hosting until i read this
YOU’RE THE MAN!
Thanks for the compliments. You really made my day and I’m ecstatic that this post did the same for you. I don’t accept donations @ the moment but I do accept liking and sharing this post on facebook, tweeting, digging or stumbling it to get the word out. Thanks again and have a great day
By the way, I tried accessing your site but got this message instead:
Hello, The website you are trying to access has been blocked by the service of http://www.blockacountry.com
i installed it on my web … As soon as i activated it the next page is “fatal error: tried to allocate xxxxx bytes…. on wp-admin/…/line:40″
and i can’t do nothing please tell me what is the problem
You are having memory issues. Try finding a solution here: http://www.diyanazman.com/2010/02/21/how-to-resolve-wordpress-fatal-error-allowed-memory-size-of-xxxxx-bytes-exhausted-tried-to-allocate-xxxxx-bytes/
Udegbunam – thank God I found your blog. Most of the sites I went to used the jargon we need to have demystified.
Most people just want to see how it is done, and you provided some good screenshots for it!
LOL. Screenshots are my specialty man. They make tutorials a lot more fun and easier to understand. Really excited that it helped you setup your own installation. Do have a great weekend man. Cheers
Udegbunam – I have one other question not related to W3.
What plugin are you using for the “Notify me of all follow-up comments via email” for the comment section?
Thanks!
That would be the suscribe to comments plugin. I”m using it together with the ReplyMe plugin
Udegbunam – ok thanks! I was going to earlier install Replyme, but I want to give my readers the choice, so I went with Subscribe to Comments, although it looks like they will get an email for every additional comment.
I have one final question: I like what the Comment Luv plugin option is doing for your commenters. Do I have to sign-up at the Comment Luv site (comluv.com) in order for this plugin to work for me also? I am thinking about installing it.
Subscribe to comment gives your commentators no choice at all. All comments after they subscribed will be sent to their box but with ReplyMe they will only receive replies to their comments.
You don’t need to sign up at the commentluv site to use the plugin but if you later plan on taking advantage of the plugin at other sites like mine, you’ll need to sign up
Thanks for the guide, helped me with my migration to total cache from super cache.
You’re welcome. Please kindly retweet or share it on facebook if you don’t mind. I’d TOTALLY appreciate that
I have Installed the plugin and everything is working fine now, i used a self hosted sub domain for CDN, which is working correctly . After that i used the Cpanel of my hosting to redirect the Sub domain to Main site. After this when i tested my Blog with Webapgetest.org , its showing a lots of 301 redirect when files from Sub domain is loaded , which is consuming some extra time, which is no the case when i tested your for the same !
Can you suggest me a better way to redirect My Subdomain to Main site ,when somebody tries to visit the subdomain directly ! and What you are using for the same !
Simply add the index.htm file I sent you to the root of your subdomain CDN and you should be fine
Thanks for sharing this information. I was having some issue with my blog and my webhost recommended that I use a wordpress cache plugin. I was first installed Wp Super Cache but did not notice any serious improvement, but after reading your recommendation, I decided to give W3 Total Cache Plugin a trial. Well, I’m happy to say that it works fine. My pages now loads faster.
Thanks for sharing.
Nice tutorial chuck..i have done it with all the advice here
i think i want to do a blog post about this tutorial in my blog in my language..can i?
If you can translate the article to your own language and host the images on your own site, please go ahead.
I wouldn’t mind a backlink too. Lol.
Cheers!
haha…thanks chuck..
one problem..when i used the same tutorial for my other site it does not work..the theme i used is not display correctly..how can i overcome this?you can see the site at http://akunewbie.info
is it possible to revert it back to original state?
thanks
Did you minify the css and js of the theme? If you did, I strongly suggest you don’t as the W3 Total Cache’s minify engine is kinda buggy.
Did you mean on HTML minify setting?if so, yes, i minify those setting..i have disable all those minify setting, but it still same..
What theme are you using and which site is this?
i used profit theme at http://akunewbie.info
i have deactivate the plugin for the time being at it goes normal again
Can’t really say much with the plugin deactivated but you could try blocking w3 total cache from loading your style.css to the cdn as it sometimes has problems uploading a modified stylesheet to the CDN and thus causing issues with site design. That’s the reason why I don’t allow w3 total cache to control my stylesheets since I modify them frequently.
This is a great tutorial. One question though, that’s got me stumped.
In the minify CSS section of the plug-in, I’ve added the file URIs for my site:
Example: http://www.fakesite.com/wp-content/themes/faketheme/superfish.css
When I test it using the “Verify URI” it pulls up fine. But it doesn’t actually work when minified.
What’s strange, though, is that I can list an identical file from the CDN:
Example: http://www.cdn.fakesite.com/wp-content/themes/faketheme/superfish.css
And this works fine–both when I verify it and when I enable minification.
Any idea why the CDN version works but the hosted version won’t? Even when the actual file served by both is identical?
Hmmm! Dat’s strange. Have you tried clearing your browser and wordpress cache then loading your again to see if it works or not? For all you acre to know the minified stylesheet in the CDN could also be having issues.
Thanks for the prompt reply.
I’ve purged all the caches in the plug-in and on my browser. And tested it on other browsers.
I’ve also checked to make sure that the CDN is serving the correct file not just from the cloud station nearest me–but from all of them.
In every way, the two files are identical. But the hosted one won’t work and the CDN one does.
Any other ideas?
I’m out of ideas man. I guess you’ll have to use that which is hosted on the CDN.
No problem. Thanks anyway!
You’re welcome man. There are just so many unsolved issues with W3 Total Cache. Just this morning while installing WP Touch, I made a tiny modification to W3TC that shut down my site and my only saviour was that I had a backup of my .htaccess
Thanks For Sharing This Article about configuration w3 total cache.
I am working on getting this to run but when I test the ftp, I get this message: Error: Unable to change directory to: /public_html/daytradingftp/files (ftp_chdir() [function.ftp-chdir]: Can’t change directory to /public_html/daytradingftp/files: No such file or directory).
the subdomain I created was daytradingftp.moneymakeredge.com
any tips on this one.
I also have this at the top:
Content Delivery Network Error: The “Replace default hostname with” field must be populated. Enter CDN provider hostname. (This is the hostname used in order to view objects in a browser.)
I have done it three times from the beginning to get this right but doesn’t happen on the
Thank you
Joel
Thank you for this information. I had a problem with my blog and my webhost’s recommended to use a WordPress plugin cache.
I didn’t see any mention of CloudFlare. Did I miss it?
I really don’t know much about Cloudfare and that’s why I didn’t include it at all.
this plugin is not working in my website. the screenshots are given below. Please help me fix this.
http://imraan.in/prob/
Your compatibility test is same as mine though you are running on a higher PHP version. I’m on 5.2.17. You would have to provide your FTP and wordpress login details to someone you trust to help you detect what the problem is. Click disable instead of deploy to see if that works
Also another plugin might be responsible for the high CPU usage.
Thank you for this post. I can see that I like the switch to W3 Total Cache from WP Super Cache appears to have a lot more to offer. My question is about the CDN and APC options. Are there any services that you currently use or favor over others? This is will be my first time using either one and I feel a little bit in the dark…mainly I don’t want to screw anything up! Thanks!
I’m stuck with self-hosted CDN. Works better for me at the moment
Hi, Thank you very much.
That it a great tutorial
after applying this set up I still get the following two messages:
It appears Page Cache URL
rewriting is not working. If using apache, verify that the server
configuration allows .htaccess or if using nginx verify all
configuration files are included in the configuration.
Either the PHP configuration, web server configuration or a script in the WordPress installation has zlib.output_compression enabled.
Please locate and disable this setting to ensure proper HTTP compression behavior.
additionally, I get
Grade F on Add Expires headers
There are 11 static components without a far-future expiration date.
Grade C on Compress components with gzip
There are 2 plain text components that should be sent compressed
Grade E on Make fewer HTTP requests
This page has 11 external Javascript scripts. Try combining them into one.
This page has 5 external stylesheets. Try combining them into one.
anu ideas
I suggest you contact your webhost for help. By the way which webhost are you using
everytime i use this plugin i get in serious troubles, now i´ve lost all the thumbnails from my blog… i´ve just dedicded to keep away from it
Sorry man. The plugin works excellently well for most of us but then again it might have conflicts with other elements of your site or plugins
yeah i know, but helps anyway, no intention to bash the post, the tutorial is great! so thanks, i know the plugin still have some issues and the fine tuning is not very friendly
I’ll probably be editing this post soon as the plugin’s interface has changed of recent
Thanks so much for this post! These settings are very helpful.
Wow very comprehensive! I haven’t used caching plugins too much I’ve never really felt the need but it’s something I’ll be looking at if I can build up the traffic on my blog which I’m hoping to do this year.
I’ll definitely refer back to this!
You are better off installing and configuring the plugin so you can just forget about it. Who knows a traffic spike could shut you down for some days before you come around to installing the plugin.
Thanks for the compliment and do have a fabulous weekend.
Exactly what I’m looking for. Most tutorials I found have CDNs hosted to MaxCDN and 3rd party services, I’m looking for self hosted one. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
thanxs for writing a post sir but I m gettting this error:- It appears Page Cache URL rewriting is not working. If using apache, verify that the server configuration allows.htaccess or if using nginx verify all configuration files are included in the configuration.
@Tushar: I had that issue once and had to contact my webhost to help me fix it and they did. Unfortunately I don’t know how they managed to get it working.