The big (webmaster) news this week is that Midlands Maidens have changed their systems over to Litespeed Caching.
This new system has taken us over a week to set up – partly due to the fact that we’re so granular and picky in our wants and needs.
Working with their support team has been really innovative, and we’ve probably learnt more in one week than we did in the seven years of us using WP Rocket.
So what was wrong with WP Rocket?
Glad you asked that one!
Around one month ago, WP Rocket updated to a new version, which was supposed to take Pagespeed Insights to a new level.
We thought nothing more of it, as WP Rocket had always previously insisted that Pagespeed Insights scores should be taken with ‘a pinch of salt’.
Then two weeks ago, we decided to add the ‘Trending Posts’ grid to our front page.
As usual, when adding something to the homepage, we decided to run a few speed tests – and what we found forced a sharp intake of breath.
The speed figures for four of the five tests we regularly use had been decimated by at least two seconds, with one of them showing (probably a false positive) of NINE seconds.
Straight onto Rocket support with two problems – fix the image grids and improve the performance.
Three days went by which is when we decided to start changing our caching system.
The thing with Litespeed cache is that it works best on Litespeed servers so that you can take advantage of all the features that it offers.
Luckily, Midlands Maidens runs from Litespeed servers on one of the Krystal Hosting solutions, who can also advise on the best way to set it up.
WP Rocket eventually turned up, but they really hadn’t got a clue.
We’d also got the same problems with the Trending Posts grid using Litespeed Cache, but within one day, they’d got it working.
Superb support then from the Litespeed Caching support team, but also with a few added bonuses:
Results for the GT Metrics Speed Test
Results for the WebPageTest speed test
Results for the Pingdom speed test
Results for the WebDev (pagespeed insights) test
No multiple figures in the speed tests now then, and no recommendations for WP Rocket whilst they insist on releasing these shambolic new versions that are powered by ‘BETA’ features.
Christmas 2017 -The goose gets fat, the shops get busy, and the supermarkets are open 24 hours to save shoppers queuing because they won't be open for a day
This Post Has 2 Comments
I run a website with WProcket as the cache system and the SEO has fallen through the floor (see attachment)
Will Litespeed help to resolve this?
I run a website with WProcket as the cache system and the SEO has fallen through the floor (see attachment)
Will Litespeed help to resolve this?
Hi Miffy, that happened on Midlands Maidens too.
Here’s a photo taken showing the difference between the last day of WP Rocket (6th June) and now: