WP-Optimize Release v3.7.0: New free and premium features – speed up content delivery and identify slow plugins

WP-Optimize version 3.7.0 includes two new exciting optimisation features.   

In the free version, you can now automatically preload your content when a page or post is purged or updated. This ensures that your new content is instantly available to visitors, eliminating any potential delays.

If you’re a premium user, you can now identify plugins which cause your site to slow down. With the table usage feature, you have the power to detect plugins which cause slow database queries, giving you the opportunity to replace them with faster alternatives.

Automatic preload feature (free)

Existing users can enable automatic cache preloading in their settings. This is enabled by default for new users.  

  1. Go to WP-Optimize >> Page cache >> Purge the cache.  
  2. Tick the Automatically preload content after it is purged checkbox.
  3. Click the Save changes button.


Identify slow plugins feature (exclusive to premium users)

To identify slow plugins:

  1. Go to WP-Optimize >> Database >> Table usage.
  2. Click the Run the query analysis for all executed queries in this site.
  3. Select a plugin in Tables Usage Report to view detailed performance information.

Other improvements 

  • We’ve fixed an issue with the cache scheduling feature which prevented it functioning properly due the user ID not being set when preloading via CRON.
  • We’ve also fixed an inconsistency with the smush_manager_send_command function.


For a full list of changes, please review the changelog below.

Changelog:

* FEATURE: Added an option to automatically preload URLs immediately after cache content is purged.

* FEATURE: Premium – Gather data about table usage by filtering query event.

* FIX: Cache – Scheduled preloading wasn’t working.

* FIX: Inconsistency in smush_manager_send_command function.

* REFACTOR: Smush – Popup styles, remove unused code.

* TWEAK: Fix fatal implode error when updating to v3.5.0.

* TWEAK: Image compression – Issue with cancelling smush image compression.

* TWEAK: Improve module minification logic.

* TWEAK: Premium – Unused images – Fixed popup when moving images to or restoring images from the trash.

* TWEAK: Premium – Unused images – Placeholder images in unused images section.

* TWEAK: Added security.md file with information to report security issues.

WP-Optimize release v3.6.0: New premium feature – improve Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and boost PageSpeed insights score

The new 3.6.0 version of WP-Optimize has arrived.  We’ve introduced a new premium feature to auto-detect images that don’t have dimension attributes.  

Without the correct dimensions, your web browser has to download the image, calculate its size and then rearrange the page layout.  This process slows down page loading and degrades performance, causing increases in Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and First Contentful Paint Time (FCP).  These are key metrics that Google uses which can affect your page rank.

With this feature enabled, you can significantly boost your PageSpeed insights score by having the image dimensions readily available in the HTML markup.

Image dimensions feature (exclusive to premium users)

To quickly add dimensions to your images:

  1. Go to WP-Optimize >> Images >> Images dimensions  
  2. Click the Enable images dimensions button
  3. Click the Save settings button

That’s all there is to it.

Other improvements (free and premium)

  • We’ve enhanced the WebP conversion feature to ensure it remains active, even if only one shell command is detected.
  • We’ve also fixed an issue with the Unused Image Size feature which prevented images from being deleted when outside of the default folder structure (yyyy/mm).

For a full list of changes, please review the changelog below.

Changelog:

* FEATURE: Premium – Auto-detect images lacking dimension attributes and add them to improve CLS.

* FIX: Fixed the issue that disabled WebP conversion due to checking all shell commands for WebP compression.

* FIX: Premium – Unused Images – The unused image size deletion functionality does not work when images are not in the /yyyy/mm/ folder.

* REFACTOR: Removed unnecessary static methods in WebP class.

* TWEAK – Image compression – Rolled back to using popup error notices as in versions prior to 3.4.0.

* TWEAK: Added a more descriptive error with resolution proposals for failed gzip compression and browser cache tests.

* TWEAK: Fix broken unused image list thumbnails and download as csv link in Multisite.

* TWEAK: Fix the singleton pattern in Heartbeat class.

* TWEAK: Image compression functionality added to the Media Library page.

* TWEAK: Premium – Cache – Added support for Aelia Currency Switcher plugin.

* TWEAK: Premium – Unused images – improve clarity in UI for images in post revisions.

WP-Optimize release v3.5.0: Google Analytics support and more

WP-Optimize version 3.5.0 is here! This update introduces a brand new premium feature: Google Analytics support. It allows you to manage your analytics setup directly within the plugin. We’ve also made several tweaks and fixes, including compatibility with the Local Google Fonts plugin. Let’s take a closer look at what’s new in this version.

Google Analytics support (exclusive to premium users)

We’ve added a new feature for our premium users: Google Analytics support. With this new feature, you can manage your Google Analytics tracking directly from the Minify section within WP-Optimize. Here’s what this means for you:

  • Simply enter your Google Analytics tracking ID, and the script will be used across all pages, making your analytics setup easier.
  • You won’t need to rely on extra plugins to manage your Google Analytics.
  • We’re hosting the Google Analytics script on your own server, so you won’t have to depend on an external link from Google. This helps improve site performance and gives you more control over your scripts.
  • If you’re looking to reduce resource usage, we’ve included support for the Minimal Analytics script. This lightweight alternative (1.4KB compared to 91KB) offers basic analytics functionality with a much smaller file size.

screenshot of the new google analytics minify settings in wp-optimize

Compatibility improvements and other tweaks (available to all users)

In response to user feedback, we’ve added support for the Local Google Fonts plugin. This update makes sure that our minify functionality works smoothly alongside this plugin, fixing a conflict that was raised in a recent support thread. A big thank you to our community for bringing this to our attention!

For the full list of changes, please review the changelog below.

Changelog:

* FEATURE: Premium – Host Google and minimal analytics scripts locally

* FIX: Premium – Cache – Single page cache purge/preload feature isn’t working

* TWEAK: Add logging for the WebP feature

* TWEAK: Allow minification of script modules

* TWEAK: Cache – Purge the cache when the site is migrated

* TWEAK: Improvements to asset minification cache logic

* TWEAK: Improvements to reSmushIt curl error message

* TWEAK: Minify – Added an option to disable Google Fonts processing when it causes conflicts with other plugins

* TWEAK: Move all WPO files from the uploads folder to uploads/wpo

* TWEAK: Style improvement of the loading modals

WP-Optimize release v3.4.0: Bulk image restoration, WebP control and more!

In this release we’ve added loads of new features and tweaks. 

We’ve made some major improvements to image optimization. Premium users now have the ability to perform bulk image compression and restoration directly from the WordPress media library. In the past, this was only possible in the images tab. With this update, you can selectively restore multiple images or compress them in bulk, making it easier to manage your media files. We’ve also added a new filter in the media library that allows you to filter images by their compression status.

Free and premium users can also automatically delete old images when new scaled versions are created. WP-Optimize will use the scaled images instead of the original ones, saving disk space. 

And you can now control how WebP images are served. Previously, the plugin automatically chose between .htaccess redirects and HTML alteration methods for WebP files based on your server type. With the new ‘wpo_force_webp_serve_using_altered_html’ filter hook, users can force WP-Optimize to use the HTML alteration method. This can help you avoid compatibility issues on certain hosting environments.

We’ve also made some general tweaks and updates. We will no longer minify CSS/JS files that are already minified by WordPress core or other plugins/themes to save on processing time. We also made sure that WP-Optimize is compatible with WordPress’s new script loading strategies. 

Additionally, we updated the old codebase to use HeartBeat API instead of Ajax calls. HeartBeat API is built into WordPress and provides a more standard way for communication between the WordPress server and the browser. This change will help to reduce your server load and speed up your site. For sites that don’t use HeartBeat, we’ve included backups to keep things running smoothly.

We’ve added compatibility with the Curcy WooCommerce multi-currency plugin, which lets you easily manage different currencies on your e-commerce site.

Lastly, we’ve made several UI improvements for a better user experience.

For the full list of changes, please review the changelog below.

Changelog:

* FEATURE: Premium – Smush – Bulk compress / restore from media library

* FIX: Deactivate the form for minifying JS/CSS settings when the corresponding option is disabled

* REFACTOR: The functionality for the ‘Unused Images’ feature in ACF has been moved to a separate class

* TWEAK: Add UpdraftCentral commands for the latest WP-Optimize features

* TWEAK: Adjusted the scheduled preload time for improved performance

* TWEAK: Auto-update advanced-cache.php settings during site migration

* TWEAK: Cache – Human-readable file names for the cache directory

* TWEAK: Caching related cron jobs are activated even though cache is disabled

* TWEAK: Image compression – Updated message for restoring images action

* TWEAK: Implement Heartbeat API for image compression progress updates

* TWEAK: Improving vendor autoload

* TWEAK: Introduces a hook (`wpo_force_webp_serve_using_altered_html`) for changing WebP serving method

* TWEAK: Minify – Exclude .min files from minification

* TWEAK: Minify – Improve list of processed files UI

* TWEAK: Optimization of the get_uncompressed_image query

* TWEAK: Persist script loading strategy when minifying JS files

* TWEAK: Premium – Compatibility with Curcy WooCommerce multi currency plugin

* TWEAK: Premium – Unused Images – Added an option to delete original images when scaled versions exist

 

New release of WP-Optimize Premium 3.3.0: Purge and preload single pages from the backend

New feature – Purge or clear the cache from the page or post edit screen

Purging single pages directly from the post or pages screen allows changes to be reflected in real time for visitors. It’s also more efficient, particularly for large websites where purging the entire cache can be resource intensive and time-consuming.

New feature – Preload single pages for visitors

Preloading involves populating the cache with data even before it is requested. 

With this new feature, performance of specific high-traffic pages can also be optimized by preloading them into the cache, reducing load time and giving users a smoother experience. 

Additional updates include

UI improvements and fixes to a bug which was causing the new WordPress Lightbox feature to function incorrectly with JavaScript minification enabled. This issue affected certain themes, and has now been resolved. URL slugs including non-Latin characters can also now be cached correctly.

The most recent update also includes a number of useful tweaks to enhance functionality and user experience, including better debugging and logging, and improvements to some cron job-related tasks.

For a full list of tweaks and fixes, please see the changelog below:

Changelog:

= 3.3.0 – 31/Jan/2024 =

* FEATURE: Premium – Ability to preload and purge caches from individual post/page

* FIX: Premium – Unused Images – Recognise Elementor’s Container, and Section widget background images

* FIX: Avoid having repeated minified scripts in the same bundle, it breaks the code in some specific cases

* FIX: Cache – TranslatePress compatibility – Post updates purges cache for all related translated languages

* FIX: Only try to parse canonical URLs if there is a path or querystring, needed for WPML with multi-domain compatibility

* TWEAK: Add cron de-scheduling of all wpo_ events during plugin uninstall

* TWEAK: Cache – Always add source code comment about page not being cached, but only add details when WP_DEBUG is ON

* TWEAK: Cache – Fix issue with excluding encoded (non-latin) URLs

* TWEAK: Do not attempt to close browser connection when the context is not an AJAX action

* TWEAK: Minify – Logging more information about why minify static assets cache gets invalidated and regenerated

* TWEAK: Revert to the original matthiasmullie/minify repository after confirming resolution of previous issues

* TWEAK: Setup Cron job to clear failed smush tasks from DB

* TWEAK: Using clear text user agent strings instead of regular expressions to identify web browsers for improved clarity

* TWEAK: Updater library in the Premium version updated to the current release series

Improve your WooCommerce site performance with this power tweak

What is the WooCommerce ‘power tweak’ feature?

WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce platform for WordPress. It offers great functionality but also has its challenges. Our team found a problem with WooCommerce’s performance, and we created a ‘power tweak’ feature that fixes it. This feature is one of two power tweaks available in our plugin. It makes your website more efficient by optimizing a WooCommerce database query.

What is the issue with WooCommerce?

We’ve found that WooCommerce has a critical performance issue related to one of its database queries. The query lies within a function called ‘get_total_spent’, used to calculate the total amount of money spent by a customer. The query makes a calculation using several double left-joins on the post and post meta tables for lookups. This process is inefficient, as MySQL must scan a large number of rows with each new order. On a typical site, this could involve scanning over 80% of the rows in the post meta table. In one case study, MySQL had to scan over 13,000,000 rows, significantly impacting performance and user experience.

Our solution

As developers, we’ve learned that finding our own solution is often the best way to get things done. So, we engineered this feature to confront the WooCommerce query dilemma head-on. We suggested that WooCommerce use two simpler SQL queries instead of that one complicated query. However, in the absence of changes from WooCommerce, we’ve taken the initiative.

WP-Optimize has a feature called ‘power tweak’. It replaces the problematic double left-join query in WooCommerce with two shorter, more efficient queries. This enhancement is crucial for sites with high volumes of orders.

To learn more and stay updated, check out our Github thread where our lead developer and founder, David Anderson, discusses this issue.

How to access the power tweak feature

To use this feature, you’ll need the premium version of WP-Optimize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free vs Premium WP-Optimize

Free version

The free version of WP-Optimize significantly enhances your site’s performance. It simplifies complex tasks like image compression, database cleanup, and caching, making them accessible – even to those who aren’t tech-savvy. This ensures that your e-commerce site runs smoothly, providing a better experience for your visitors.

 

Get free version

Premium version

Our power tweak features are just two of the many features of premium. Other benefits include: even faster page loading speeds, tools to clean up your media library by removing unused images and image sizes, premium support, and so much more.

Have a look at the full features of WP-Optimize premium here.

 

Get premium version