WordPress Plugins can cause errors directly and immediatley, however a bad plugin can have effects that do not instantly cause an error, but have long term effects on your CPU and resource usage causing even larger harder to fix problems.
This article will help you install programs that will actively Optimize your WordPress and identify plugins that are damaging to your site.
Install Recommended Plugins
There are a few plugins that Resellerclub strongly recommends that every WordPress user install. These plugins actively improve the efficiency and health of WordPress sites:
Install WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache. The installation of either of these plugins can be done from your WordPress Dashboard under Plugins. Follow the links below for information on how to set up these plugins:
WP Super Cache (recommended)
WP Super Cache is a simple and easy-to-manage caching plugin that is set up by default if you installed WordPress via our QuickInstall cPanel plugin.
W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is a more advanced and feature-rich caching plugin. It is normally overkill and can adversely affect performance if it isn't set up correctly. If advanced caching features such as Minify or CDN integration are needed, you should use this plugin.
Install Anti Spambot Plugins. Unlike caching plugins you can have multiple plugins that prevent spam bots from abusing your site with large quantities of spam and attack.
Askimet: It is recommended to use Akismet to automatically filter and delete spam posts on your blog which can dramatically increase your resource usage as well as inconvenience you with Spam.
CAPTCHA: Choose and install a CAPTCHA plugin. There are many options for this that are highly rated. A good CAPTCHA plugin will help prevent the spam posts from ever getting made.
Review Your Existing Plugins
Any plugins that are not vital to your WordPress should be deleted. Please remember that any time you add additional plugins, each of these plugins can increase your resource usage. We recommend no more than 3 to 5 active plugins, not including your caching plugin.
If you're having difficulty with your site that may be caused by a plugin, you can disable all of your plugins to return your site to a functional state. At that time, you may reactivate them one at a time, and observe their impact on your site before activating the next plugin.
In addition to checking this manually, the following plugins are known to be severely resource intensive and could cause downtime, longer page load times, or larger process counts. It is advised that you avoid the use of these plugins:
Resource-Intensive Plugins:
- Google Sitemap
- StatPress and other WordPress statistics software plugins
- Unique_articles
- WP Post Views
- WPRobot3 and other auto-poster plugins
- Some SEO plugins
- Some image galleries and media players are intensive, but this largely depends on how you use them.
- All related posts plugins such as WordPress Related Posts or YARPP
- All Backup plugins
Plugins are developed by third parties. If you're having difficulty with a plugin, or have identified a plugin as being the source of your issue, you will need to contact the plugin developer for support.
