CodeDragon SmartCache

One of the most important aspects of owning a website is having it rank well with search engines. After all, no one creates a site intending for it to be buried on page 20 of a Google search.

CodeDragon SmartCache was designed as a powerful performance and caching system for WordPress websites yet easy enough for the non-technical site owner to understand. Employing several “layered” capabilities such as minifying, combining, page and browser caching and CDN support, SmartCache is able to:

1. Condense served resources to improve network bandwidth
2. Improve user experience by reducing the time it takes to offer your site content
3. Focus on the key aspects that search indexing sites like Google regard when ranking the site

After installing SmartCache it will automatically activate the most optimal settings for your site. If you would like to further customize these settings, this introduction will walk you through some of the key steps. A more detailed instruction is available in our Startup Document. Ultimately, we have built SmartCache so that getting up and running does not require making manual changes to the wp-config.php, .htaccess, or other site files.

Minifying

At the lowest level, SmartCache will minify Javascript, CSS stylesheets, fonts, and HTML content. As well, it can automatically minimizes render-blocking files, and remove query strings.

Combining

By combining files, SmartCache helps to reduce the number of requests for files from the server, thus shortening the amount of time required to load a page.

Page Caching

Page caching goes further by implementing GZip Compression, preparing a separate HTTPS cache and serving a “flattened” HTML version of your site’s pages. With GZIp Compression and static HTML content pages are provided with less processing from the server.

Browser Caching

At this point SmartCache instructs your server with the preferred expiry periods for several file types, so client browsers can comfortably reuse cached files until they expire.

SmartCache Features

• Plugin is ready to go, with the most optimal setup, after activation
• Easy to configure without using techical jargon or confusing settings
• Minify Javascript and CSS stylesheet files
• Control whether logged-in users see minified content
• Removal of query (or GET) strings from static requests
• Limit removal of only ‘ver=nnn’ query strings
• Defer loading of render-blocking Javascript script files
• Asynchronous loading of Javascript script files
• Asynchronous loading of CSS stylesheets
• Combine script and stylesheet files
• Control whether scripts and stylesheets are combined for logged-in users
• Full page caching
• Turn page caching on/off for logged-in users
• GZip compression
• Enable/disable frontpage caching
• Provide a separate cache for mobile devices
• Browser caching
• Performance test links to GTMetrix, Pingdom and Pagespeed
• Performance reports
• All this for free!

SmartCache Premium adds the following:

• Minify HTML content
• Serve static versions of HTML pages
• Include WordPress core files in minification
• Use Google(R) Closure as the minifier
• Prevent loading of jQuery Migrate
• Script and Stylesheet File Tuning. Control the minification of each file separetely
• Specify which script files to defer and/or load asynchronously
• Specify which stylesheets to load asynchronously
• Combine font requests in stylesheets
• @import expansion in stylesheets
• Select which page or pages are not to be cached
• Select which post types are not to be cached
• Clear cache when specific post types are saved
• Specify which cookies, that if set in the browser, will cause page to not be cached
• Page caching for HTTPS pages
• Select which user-agents will not receive cached files
• Control the Last-Modified Header
• Control Javascript/XML file Expiry Max Age
• Control CSS stylesheet Expiry Max Age
• Control JPEG, GIF, and PNG image file Expiry Max Age
• Control PDF file Expiry Max Age
• Control the Vary: Accept Encoding Header
• Control the Entity Tag (ETag) Header
• Amazon CloudFront CDN support
• Determine which theme files to include in CDN fileset
• Determine which minified Javascript/CSS files to include in in CDN fileset
• Specify files to exclude from the CDN fileset
• Clear revision records
• Clear transient data
• Clear auto-drafts
• Clear trashed posts
• Clear SPAM and trashed comments
• Clear OPCache and Varnish cache
• Woocommerce compatibility
• Developer friendly with hooks and filters
• Export and import plugin settings
• Customize the location of the cache folder
• Activate the plugin’s debug mode and see what is processed on each page
• Available addons
• Premium support
• Send debug info from a specific site URL with your support tickets
• Choose what post-deactivation tasks are performed: clear caches and/or delete settings
• Participate in our Premium Community forum