Getting started with WP Rocket

WP Rocket integrates more than 80% of web performance good practices automatically. Even without any of its options activated, the loading time of your website will decrease significantly.

You’ve activated WP Rocket—what now?

The first thing you’ll want to do once you’ve activated WP Rocket is:

📈 Run an ON/OFF test with WP Rocket’s default settings, and see how much faster your site has become already!

You’ll be able to see the improvement in loading time WP Rocket has achieved just by running in its default configuration. If you have advanced knowledge about how the rendering of a website works in the browser, you can start to further optimize your setup based on recommendations from performance testing tools like GTmetrix, Pingdom Tools, or Google Developers PageSpeed Insights—although we generally recommend to take those with a grain of salt.

Learn what to expect from PageSpeed and how to improve the score

Did you know you can easily A/B-test WP Rocket’s on/off state by appending a query parameter to a URL from your site?

A regular URL will give you a cached page:

https://example.com/your-page-or-blog-post/

Appending ?nowprocket to the URL will give you the same page without WP Rocket—no caching, file optimization, Lazyload, or the like, just plain WordPress:

https://example.com/your-page-or-blog-post/?nowprocket

Comparing test results from both of these types of URLs, you’ll get a great first impression of how much better your loading times have become, and what you should focus on for further optimization.

Are there any recommended settings for WP Rocket?

There isn’t one recommended configuration of WP Rocket that can be used on every site. Themes, plugins, and hosting environments can vary greatly. Therefore, some settings will work differently on different websites.

There are even settings—like File optimization—that will work perfectly fine on one site, but won’t work at all on another. So sometimes leaving a setting entirely disabled can be your best bet! On the other hand, a number of key features—like page caching, browser caching, and GZIP compression—are completely automated; they don’t even appear on your settings page, but quietly work their magic under the hood and make your site faster without you having to move a finger.

Read our guide and watch the video: How to Find the Best Settings for your Site

Automated features

The following features are fully automated, they are not represented on WP Rocket’s settings page:

Page caching (static HTML file cache)
Browser caching (on Apache/LiteSpeed, if available on the server)
GZIP compression (on Apache/LiteSpeed, if available on the server)
Cross-Origin support for web fonts (on Apache/LiteSpeed)
Detection and support of various third-party plugins, themes, and hosting environments
WooCommerce Refresh Cart Fragments Cache
Optimize Google Fonts files
Disable (WordPress) Emoji

Default settings

The following settings are activated by default when you activate WP Rocket for the first time:

Mobile cache (based on WordPress’ mobile phone detection)
Cache lifespan (10 hours)
Cache Preloading
Preload Links
Heartbeat Control (set to Reduce Activity)

If you ever want to reset the WP Rocket settings to the defaults:

Disable all options except the above.
Or, delete and reinstall WP Rocket.

⭐️ Note: Depending on your individual WordPress setup and hosting, some other settings may be activated, or disabled by default.

Settings panels

Looking for a specific setting? Here’s a quick overview of where’s what in WP Rocket:

Dashboard

Clear cache and Preload cache buttons
FAQ and Ask support button
License status
Analytics option

Cache settings

File optimization

🎯 Settings in this pane can improve performance grades when handled with care.
🔥 They can also break a website temporarily!
👉 If you notice any issues after activating one of these options, deactivate it again first, then troubleshoot.

Options to eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS: