Evidence-led WordPress performance guides.

Measure representative pages and wp-admin before making changes. Record response time, Core Web Vitals, cache status and server resource use so you can identify whether the bottleneck is the browser, WordPress, database or hosting layer.

Test the homepage, a typical content page and the pages tied to enquiries or sales. Include logged-in or uncached actions where they matter, because a fast cached homepage does not prove that search, account or checkout requests are healthy.

No. Page caching can reduce repeated server work, but it cannot repair slow uncached queries, external scripts or undersized hosting. Incorrect rules can also cache baskets, accounts or personalised pages that must remain dynamic.

Clear the layers actually used by the site, which may include a plugin, host page cache, object cache, CDN, PHP opcode cache and browser cache. Purge them in a controlled order and confirm that the new version is being served.

Resize images to their displayed dimensions, compress them, use an appropriate modern format and preserve originals or backups. Check responsive image markup and visual quality rather than applying maximum compression to the whole media library at once.

It can reduce backup size and help when large autoloaded options or abandoned plugin tables are involved, but deleting revisions alone may not change page speed. Measure the database and queries first, then remove known data in recoverable batches.

wp-admin is usually uncached and may trigger plugin dashboards, API calls, scheduled tasks or expensive database queries. Compare screens, browser requests, PHP logs and query timings to isolate the slow component.

Only partly. They describe important parts of the user's loading and interaction experience, while server response is one contributor. Images, fonts, scripts, layout movement and main-thread work can remain slow even with a fast server.

Usually it is better to limit unnecessary activity than disable it completely. Heartbeat supports features such as post locking and session checks, so test editorial and plugin workflows after changing its frequency.

Get help when the bottleneck is unclear, server load is unstable, checkout or logged-in actions are slow, or optimisation plugins conflict. A developer can profile the request and fix the cause instead of stacking more cache settings onto it.