Learn Advanced Minify Settings Of W3 Total Cache Plugin

In previous article I have written about general settings of W3 total cache plugin which should be used by bloggers. There are many settings of this amazing plugin and you must know. You should know advanced minify settings of W3 Total cache because most of bloggers do it wrong and face problems with their website. As I have discussed earlier that if you do wrong minify settings of this plugin then it may break CSS of your website and even it can conflict with other plugins too.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="651"] Learn Advanced Minify Settings Of W3 Total Cache Plugin[/caption]

If you want to use this plugin effectively then you should know about the best minify settings. In general settings you have selected “auto” option for minify settings but do you know about its advanced settings?

Minify settings of W3 Total Cache :

For better performance you should do the best minify settings of W3 Total Cache. Many bloggers may think that why am I focusing on these settings of this plugins? I must let you know that these settings are so crucial and you should know about them otherwise you may fall into trouble. Its better to know them so that you wouldn’t face any difficulty in future. I am going to show you the correct settings with some steps.

Step 1). First you need to open “Minify” by going to “performance corner in the dashboard of your WordPress. You can find this option easily at which you have to click. After clicking to “Minify” a new tab will open in front of you where you will find many settings from which you need to choose the best.

Step 2). You can see that first setting is “General”  in which you can see some options. You should enable “Rewrite URL Structure”. It will help your users to get optimized results for their query. Its a good practice to rewrite URL structure for embedded CSS and JS.

Another option is to “Disable minify for logged in users” by enabling which your logged in users will not get any minified page. But its better to keep the nature of your website same for all users.

Last option in this phase is to get notification whenever your website get any minification error. No need to enable it so select “Disabled” from the list.

Step 3). Here you come at “HTML & XML” settings. These settings are very important and you must keep an eye upon these. For better minification of your CSS and JavaScript files you should “enable” it. Check to inline minification for CSS and JS which will ignore extra codes from the CSS and JS of your website. You should check on “Don’t minify feeds” because there is no need to minify your feeds. Only last option should be unchecked. 

It is recommended that if you face get any problem with the appearance of your website or any CSS error then you should disable this setting. Uncheck inline CSS & JS minification. I would recommend you to keep this setting disabled to have less risk.

There is another section to choose minification for the comments you get at your website. When minification is done then all the codes are removed to decrease page size but you should keep the comments from Google AdSense which is already written default. You can use any additional comments which you don’t want to get minified.

Step 4). Now its time to enable JavaScript minify settings. Here you should click to “Enable”. Under “Operations in areas” you must use “Minify” with Default(blocking). Enable both the remaining option.

Note :- You must test this setting at your website and if you notice any visual change then disable it.

Step 5). In CSS minify settings you should check all the three options except “Combine only”.  In “@import handling” you must choose “process” from none, bubble and process.

Note :- CSS id responsible for the design of your website and if you see any change in the design of your website then you shouldn’t use these settings.

Step 6). The last section is of advanced minify settings of W3 Total Cache. In this section you shouldn’t click at first option. Check it if you get any error related to the working of “Auto” option of minify. You can use manual option to remove such errors. 

• Filename length = 150


• Update external files every = 21600


• Garbage collection interval = 86400


• Never minify the following = You can add particular pages you don’t want to get minified.


• Never minify the following JS files = Here too you can add files which you want to get ignored.


• Never minify the following CSS files = You have an option to add CSS files too.


• Reject user agents = Leave it blank.


• Include external files/libaries = Keep it default.

After doing setting for each section you should save settings. Keep in your mind that you may try these settings to reduce the page size of your website but most of settings may harm the appearance of your website so its better to test them before permanent settings. You can use CloudFlare with W3 Total cache plugin which can give better response in which you don’t need to do these settings.

Have you done minify settings of W3 Total cache properly?

Now have you become aware about the best minify settings of this amazing W3 Total cache? Are you ready to check this plugin with the minify settings? It is dependent at the nature of your website and web hosting as how these settings would work? You have to do these settings with care and keep in your mind that after doing one setting you should check your website. If you see any visual change then its good to disable that setting. Most of settings are related to CSS and JavaScript so its better to check the design of your website every time to check minification for them.