WordPress on Crack: Tips for Faster Post Publishing

Apparently, article posting is painfully slow on 2-ish versions of WordPress. Indeed, we finally got tired of waiting several minutes every time we published, saved, or edited a post. After a bit of research, reading through countless complaints and suggested remedies, several key methods began to emerge. And, after taking the time to implement them, we have definitely enjoyed an substantial decrease in time required to publish, save, or edit posts.

Steps to improve WP performance

Before proceeding, please be aware that everyone’s site is configured differently. These are the tricks that helped us to speed up publishing, but they may not have the same effect for everyone. That said, here are some steps to improve the performance of your WordPress-powered site.

Delete rpc.pingomatic.com

Perhaps the most commonly recommended fix for slow posting: Remove rpc.pingomatic.com from the Admin » Options » Writing » Update Services panel. For some reason, pingomatic is really slow these days. Try using pingoat.com, or any other freely available tool (there are many).

Delete all cached content

Another trick that helps improve posting speed is to delete the entire contents of the WordPress cache. It is entirely safe to delete everything in the wp-content/cache directory. In case you are paranoid, make a backup copy before doing so ;)

Remove the admin post preview panel

If you never use the “post-preview” window that appears near the end of your “Write Post” panel, go ahead and remove it. Doing so will save bandwidth, load time, processing time, etc. To eliminate such superfluousness, crack open your wp-admin/post.php file and delete precisely the following region of code (located near line #83 in WP 2.0.5), which may look slightly different in previous versions of WordPress:

<div id='preview' class='wrap'>
<h2 id="preview-post"><?php _e('Post Preview (updated when post is saved)'); ?> <small class="quickjump"><a href="#write-post"><?php _e('edit ↑'); ?></a></small></h2>
<iframe src="<?php echo wp_specialchars(apply_filters('preview_post_link', add_query_arg('preview', 'true', get_permalink($post->ID)))); ?>" width="100%" height="600" ></iframe>
</div>

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Designer. Developer. Producer. Writer. Editor. Etc.