SG SiteGround Optimizer: Best Settings and Configuration (2023)

Looking for the Siteground optimizer’s best settings?

Great, because SG Siteground optimizer is the best cache plugin if you are using Siteground hosting.

Even you don’t need the premium plugins like WpRocket.

I don’t say the plugins like WpRocket, W3Total cache, wp super cache, etc. are not good but with Siteground hosting,

SG optimizer works best rather than these caching plugins.

And yes it works only if you have Siteground hosting because you need to enable some cache settings from the plugin as well as from your SiteGround Cpanel.

Update: Siteground Optimizer is now available to every WordPress user and not limited to siteground hosting clients only.

So, in this article, I am going to help you set up SG Siteground optimizer’s best settings for caching.

NOTE: “We recommend Cloudways as the best hosting provider” 

SG Siteground Optimizer Best Settings

1. Install & Activate

First of all, you need to install and activate the SG Siteground Optimizer plugin.

Go to plugins- Add new- Search Siteground Optimizer- Install-Activate- Done.

2. Dashboard

In the dashboard section, you can check your caching status. 

You can check which settings are enabled and visit directly to other settings with a single click.

3. Caching Settings

Dynamic caching – Enable

Store your content in the server’s memory for faster access with a full-page caching solution powered by NGINX.

Having a Dynamic Cache is essential for speeding up your website.

File-based Caching – Enable

With file-based caching enabled siteground will create static HTML versions of your website which will be served to future visitors.

The files are stored in the browser’s memory.

Memcached – Enable

Powerful object caching for your site.

Memcached stores frequently executed queries to your databases and then reuses them for better performance.

Automatic Purge – Enable

When clearing the cache – purge the WordPress API cache too – Enable

When enabled, the cache will be purged automatically without performing manually.

Manual cache purge – Purge cache

Use this to cache purge manually when the automatic purge is disabled.

You can use this option when you’re modifying new content and don’t have automatic purge enabled to make sure that old cached is purged right away.

Exclude URLs from caching – “add URLs here by clicking on the edit button”

You can add URLs here that you don’t want to cache like sitemap URLs.

Browser specific caching – Enable

Generate caching separately for different browsers.

Enable this feature only if you’re experiencing issues with plugins generating mobile versions of your website or other similar functionality.

This feature significantly lowers caching efficiency.

Recommended but Cloudflare is best for this.

4. Environment Settings

HTTPS enforce – Enable

It is recommended but useful only for siteground hosting users.

It configures your site to work correctly via HTTPS and forces a secure connection to your site.

In order to force HTTPS, siteground will automatically update your database replacing all insecure links.

In addition to that, Siteground will add a rule in your .htaccess file, forcing all requests to go through an encrypted connection.

You can enforce https from your hosting CPanel or using Cloudflare.

Fix insecure content – Enable

Enable this option in case you’re getting insecure content errors on your website.

Siteground will dynamically rewrite insecure requests for resources coming from your site.

Insecure contents are also called mixed contents.

GZIP compression – Enable

This enables compression of the content that’s delivered to your visitors’ browsers improving the network loading times of your site.

It is recommended as this can reduce the size of your files.

Browser caching – Enable

Cloudflare is better but you can enable this if you are not a Cloudflare user.

Enabling this will add rules to store the static content of your site longer in the visitors’ browser cache which improves the site performance.

WordPress heartbeat Optimization – Disable

Recommended by Siteground but I personally don’t recommend enabling this option.

Heartbeats will increase your server load resulting in increased CPU usage.

The WordPress Heartbeat API checks your post edit pages every 15 seconds and your dashboard and front end every 60 seconds, even in the absence of scheduled tasks. 

However, You can modify these settings to reduce load.

Schedule database maintenance – Enable

I always recommend optimizing your database and this option will clean up your database once a week to keep it small and optimized.

Tasks performed by this option,

-Perform Database Optimization for MyISAM tables
-Delete all automatically created post and page drafts
-Delete all page and post revisions
-Delete all posts and pages in your Trash
-Delete all comments marked as Spam
-Delete all expired Transients

However, I recommend using WP optimize plugin for advanced database optimizations.

5. Frontend Settings

CSS Settings

NOTE: Do check the site after every setting one by one. So that if you can get any conflict, then disable that setting immediately.

Minify CSS Files – Enable

Minify your CSS files in order to reduce their size and the number of requests on the server.

Exclude from CSS Minification – “Add files”

You can add CSS files here to exclude from minification.

Combine CSS Files – Disable

Sometimes, combining CSS files will break your site or some functionality. So enable or disable it accordingly.

Exclude from CSS combination – “Add files”

You can add files here that you don’t want in the CSS combination.

Preload combines CSS – Disable

Helps in increasing page speed, but will break sites in most cases.

Javascript Settings

Minify Javascript files – Enable

Minify your JS files in order to reduce their size and the number of requests on the server.

Exclude from javascript minification – “Add files”

You can add JS files here to exclude from minification.

Combine javascript files – Disable

Sometimes, combining JS files will break your site or some functionality. So, enable or disable it accordingly.

Exclude from javascript combination – “Add files”

You can add files here that you don’t want in the JS combination.

Defer render-blocking javascript  – Enable

This can remove the render-blocking error in page speed results.

Exclude from the deferral of render-blocking JS – “Add files”

You can add JS files here that you don’t want to add in the render-blocking deferral.

General Settings

Minify HTML output – Enable

This can remove unnecessary characters from your HTML output to reduce data size and improve your site loading speed.

Exclude from HTML minification – “Add files”

You can add HTML files here that you don’t want for HTML minification.

Web fonts optimization – Enable

Save extra requests by optimizing web fonts. It is recommended.

You can also disable google fonts by using different optimization plugins like Autoptimize.

Fonts preloading – “Add files”

You can add font files here for preloading. This can help faster rendering and better performance.

Remove query strings from static resources – Enable

Removes version of query strings from your static resources improving the caching of those resources.

Disable emojis – Enable

Always enable this to prevent WordPress from automatically detecting and generating emojis in your posts or pages.

DNS prefetch for external domains – “add URL”

You can add external URLs here for DNS prefetch for faster loading of resources.

6. Media Settings

Image Compression – At least 80%

Image compression is used to resize the image sizes. However, it is recommended to backup before applying this setting.

Use WebP Images – Enable

WebP images are next-generation formats and are recommended to use.

Lazy load media – Enable

Lazy loading is important and recommended to everyone.

With lazy loading, images will only be visible and appear when people scroll down.

Exclude CSS classes from Lazy load – “add files”

You can add CSS classes here to prevent and exclude from lazy loading.

Exclude media types from Lazy load – “add files”

You can add media types here to prevent and exclude from lazy loading.

Maximum image width – Enable

Enabling this will optimize, resize, reduce the existing and future images that exceed 2560 px.

7. Speed Test

Here you can check your posts, pages loading speed.

I don’t know why this feature is added by siteground.

We already have better tools available like GTmetrix and Google Pagespeed insights.

My Opinion & Results!

To achieve 99+ scores in Gtmetrix, google pagespeed insights you just need the best combination of,

• a fast and reliable web hosting – Cloudways
• a well-coded theme – Themify Ultra
• Cloudflare CDN
• wp-optimize for database optimization

Check my score after this deadly combination.

Hope you get what you are looking for and use the comments section for any issues setting up the Siteground optimizer plugin.