WP Rocket Improves Core Web Vitals Metrics

WP Rocket 3.9 has just arrived in orbit. The latest version of the popular WordPress caching plugin focuses on preparing your WordPress sites for the big Google update of 2021 aka the “Page Experience Update”. It improves the Core Web Vitals metrics and the PageSpeed Insights score, in addition to a better loading time and perceived speed of the website.

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New Features

Here’s what you can expect in this brand-new version:

• Delaying JS Execution 2.0
  WP Rocket 3.9 will now easily delay all JavaScript files, improving the loading time and PageSpeed Insights score. Delaying JavaScript files should have a direct impact on the two Core Web Vitals metrics LCP (loading performance) and FID (interactivity). This addresses the Google recommendations about “Reduce Unused JavaScript” (formerly “Remove unused Javascript”) – “Eliminate render-blocking resources” and “Reduce JavaScript execution time.” Thanks to the exclusion list, you can decide if you need to exclude any JavaScript files from being delayed.
• Removing Unused CSS (in beta)
  WP Rocket 3.9 will now parse each page of the website, remove all the unused CSS from each page to reduce unnecessary bytes, and generate only used CSS for the specific page. This will reduce the overall page size (because the size and number of files loaded by the browser will be smaller), the number of CSS stylesheets to be loaded, and the page load time. It should address Google’s recommendation to “Reduce unused CSS”, have a positive effect on the LCP (measures loading performance) and the FID (measures interactivity) metrics as a result, and improve the PageSpeed Insights score.

Finally, WP Rocket removed the “Google Analytics Tracking” and “Facebook Pixels” add-ons. Currently, Google recommends optimizing third-party JS files by lazy loading, and that’s what they do with the Delay JS execution feature. In addition to WP Rocket, we are also using Perfmatters, the popular web performance plugin for WordPress.

Pricing, Support & Updates

WP Rocket pricing starts from as low as $49 for a single site. They are charging $99 for up to 3 sites and $249 for unlimited sites. All plans come with one year of free support and updates.

Please note that they are providing a 14 days money-back guarantee. Thus, you can test their feature-rich WordPress caching plugin risk-free. What are you waiting for?

Check Out WP Rocket – A Great WordPress Caching Plugin »