WordPress.org

Weston Ruter

WordPress Performance Team

<p><em>This plugin was formerly called as “No-cache BFCache”, which admittedly was a poor jargony name and was too narrowly scoped.</em></p>
<p>This plugin enables instant back/forward navigation via the browser’s <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/bfcache" rel="nofollow ugc">bfcache</a>. It does this by removing the <code>no-store</code> directive from the <code>Cache-Control</code> response header, which WordPress sends by default when <code>nocache_headers()</code> is called. This happens primarily when a user is logged in, but some plugins may send these “no-cache” headers such as on the Cart or Checkout pages for an e-commerce site. <strong>Upon activation, to see the effect, you must log out of WordPress and log back in again, ensuring “Remember Me” is checked.</strong> Even so, another plugin, theme or server configuration may be active which makes pages <a href="https://web.dev/articles/bfcache#optimize" rel="nofollow ugc">ineligible for bfcache</a> due to other <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API/Monitoring_bfcache_blocking_reasons#blocking_reasons" rel="nofollow ugc">blocking reasons</a>. Nevertheless, the removal of <code>no-store</code> will <em>still speed up back/forward navigations</em> since pages may then be served from the browser’s HTTP cache, eliminating the need to re-download the HTML from the server. This is a feature plugin to implement <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/63636" rel="nofollow ugc">#63636</a> in WordPress core.</p>
<p>Blog post: <a href="https://weston.ruter.net/2025/07/23/instant-back-forward-navigations-in-wordpress/" rel="nofollow ugc">Instant Back/Forward Navigations in WordPress</a></p>
<p>The speed of page navigations in WordPress saw a big boost in 6.8 with the introduction of <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/03/06/speculative-loading-in-6-8/" rel="nofollow ugc">Speculative Loading</a>. However, by default Speculative Loading in WordPress is not configured to enable <em>instant</em> page loads, which requires a non-conservative eagerness with the prerender mode; not all sites can even opt in to prerendering due to compatibility issues, such as with analytics, and due to concerns about sustainability with unused prerenders (e.g. increasing server load and taxing a user’s bandwidth/CPU). While Speculative Loading (i.e. the Speculation Rules API) is relatively new and currently only supported in Chromium browsers (e.g. Chrome and Edge), there is a much older web platform technology that enables prerendering <em>and</em> which is supported in all browsers: the back/forward cache (bfcache). This instant loading involves no network traffic and no CPU load, since previously visited pages are stored in memory. According to the web.dev article on <a href="https://web.dev/articles/bfcache" rel="nofollow ugc">back/forward cache</a>:</p>
<p><strong>Chrome usage data shows that 1 in 10 navigations on desktop and 1 in 5 on mobile are either back or forward. With bfcache enabled, browsers could eliminate the data transfer and time spent loading for billions of web pages every single day!</strong></p>
<p>Also learn more via the following video:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Debugging bfcache, make your page load instantly #DevToolsTips" width="750" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y2IVv5KnrmI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Normally, WordPress sends a <code>Cache-Control</code> header with the <code>no-store</code> directive when a user is logged in. This has the effect of <a href="https://web.dev/articles/bfcache#minimize-no-store" rel="nofollow ugc">breaking the browser’s bfcache</a>, which means that navigating back or forward in the browser requires the pages to be re-fetched from the server and for any JavaScript on the page to re-execute. The result can be a sluggish navigation experience not only when navigating around the WP Admin (see <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/pull/44322#:~:text=page%20load%20is%3A-,Without%20bfcache,-With%20bfcache" rel="nofollow ugc">Jetpack demo video</a> and demo video below) but also when navigating around the frontend of a site. Furthermore, the lack of bfcache can cause data loss when data has been entered via a JavaScript-built UI since this state is lost when a page is not restored via bfcache (see <a href="https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/pull/58445#issuecomment-3014404754" rel="nofollow ugc">WooCommerce demo video</a> and demo video below).</p>
<p>The reason why the <code>no-store</code> directive was added in the first place was due to a privacy concern where an authenticated user may log out of WordPress, only for another person to access the computer and click the back button to view the contents of the authenticated page loaded from bfcache or the HTTP cache. (See <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21938" rel="nofollow ugc">#21938</a>.) In practice this issue depends on the user being on a shared computer who didn’t exit the browser, and it requires the malicious user to act soon before the page is evicted from bfcache (e.g. Chrome as a <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/bfcache-ccns#:~:text=The%20bfcache%20timeout%20for%20Cache%2DControl%3A%20no%2Dstore%20pages%20is%20also%20reduced%20to%203%20minutes%20(from%2010%20minutes%20used%20for%20pages%20which%20don%27t%20use%20Cache%2DControl%3A%20no%2Dstore)%20to%20further%20reduce%20risk." rel="nofollow ugc">10-minute timeout</a>).</p>
<p>To address this privacy concern, a safeguard is in place to protect against restoring pages from bfcache and the HTTP cache after the user has logged out:</p>
<p>When authenticating to WordPress, a “bfcache session token” cookie is set along with the other authentication cookies. This cookie is not HTTP-only so that it can be read in JavaScript; it is a random string not used for any other purpose. When an authenticated page is served, this bfcache session token is included in the HTML as well as a script which reads the value of this cookie. When a user navigates away from the page and then navigates back to it, a script on the page checks if the current session token in the cookie matches the initial session token sent with the page. If they do not match (e.g. because the user has logged out or another user has logged in), then the contents of the page are cleared and the page is reloaded so that the contents are not available.</p>
<p>Since JavaScript is required to invalidate cached pages, the login form is extended to pass along whether scripting is enabled. Only when JS is enabled will the <code>no-store</code> directive be omitted from the <code>Cache-Control</code> response header. This ensures that users with JavaScript turned off will retain the privacy protection after logging out. Lastly, <code>no-store</code> is also only omitted if the user checked the “Remember Me” checkbox on the login form. Since it is highly unlikely a user on a shared computer would have checked this checkbox, this provides yet an additional safeguard (which may in the end prove excessive). A ✨ emoji is displayed next to the checkbox in a button that opens a popover that promotes the capability. If you want to opt out of this opt-in (and the sparkle) so that all logged-in users get bfcache, you can use the <code>nocache_bfcache_use_remember_me_as_opt_in</code> filter which you can use in a custom plugin or your theme:</p>
<pre>add_filter( 'nocache_bfcache_use_remember_me_as_opt_in', '__return_false' );</pre>
<p>When this plugin strips out the <code>no-store</code> directive, it also ensures that the <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Cache-Control#private" rel="nofollow ugc"><code>private</code> directive</a> is sent in its place: “The <code>private</code> response directive indicates that the response can be stored only in a private cache (e.g., local caches in browsers).” WordPress is already sending <code>private</code> as of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/57627" rel="nofollow ugc">#57627</a>. This directive ensures that proxies do not cache authenticated pages. In addition to ensuring <code>private</code> is present, this plugin also adds <code>no-cache</code>, <code>max-age=0</code>, and <code>must-revalidate</code> while ensuring <code>public</code> is removed, all to further guard against any misconfigured proxy from caching the private response.</p>
<h4>Demo: Navigating the WordPress Admin</h4>
<p>Without bfcache:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Admin without Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cz-_L6q9ZRc?start=22&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>With bfcache:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Admin with Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z4dILiwe0Rk?start=27&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h4>Demo: Navigating the WordPress Frontend</h4>
<p><strong>Without bfcache:</strong> The drafted BuddyPress activity update is lost when navigating away from the page before submitting. The activity feed and Tweet have to be reconstructed with each back/forward navigation.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Frontend without Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ko1w_SRlCig?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><strong>With bfcache:</strong> The drafted BuddyPress activity update is preserved when navigating away from the page without submitting. The activity feed and Tweet do not have to be reconstructed when navigating to previously visited pages via the back/forward buttons.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Frontend with Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bzGm6LcHHAs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>


Instant Back/Forward


This is now a "must install" plugin for me on every site I work on. It's absolutely magical.


Magical

Enables back/forward cache (bfcache) for instant history navigations even when “nocache” headers are sent, such as when a user is logged in.

Automattic

Donncha O Caoimh (a11n)

Mike Stott

Nauris

Mark (a11n)

Pete (a11n)

Adnan Haque (a11n)

Peter Petrov

<p>This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog.  After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.</p>
<p>The static html files will be served to the vast majority of your users:</p>
<ul>
<li>Users who are not logged in.</li>
<li>Users who have not left a comment on your blog.</li>
<li>Or users who have not viewed a password protected post.</li>
</ul>
<p>99% of your visitors will be served static html files. One cached file can be served thousands of times. Other visitors will be served custom cached files tailored to their visit. If they are logged in, or have left comments those details will be displayed and cached for them.</p>
<p>The plugin serves cached files in 3 ways (ranked by speed):</p>
<ol>
<li>Expert. The fastest method is by using Apache mod_rewrite (or whatever similar module your web server supports) to serve “supercached” static html files. This completely bypasses PHP and is extremely quick. If your server is hit by a deluge of traffic it is more likely to cope as the requests are “lighter”. This does require the Apache mod_rewrite module (which is probably installed if you have custom permalinks) and a modification of your .htaccess file which is risky and may take down your site if modified incorrectly.</li>
<li>Simple. Supercached static files can be served by PHP and this is the recommended way of using the plugin. The plugin will serve a “supercached” file if it exists and it’s almost as fast as the mod_rewrite method. It’s easier to configure as the .htaccess file doesn’t need to be changed. You still need a custom permalink. You can keep portions of your page dynamic in this caching mode.</li>
<li>WP-Cache caching. This is mainly used to cache pages for known users, URLs with parameters and feeds. Known users are logged in users, visitors who leave comments or those who should be shown custom per-user data. It’s the most flexible caching method and slightly slower. WP-Cache caching will also cache visits by unknown users if supercaching is disabled. You can have dynamic parts to your page in this mode too. This mode is always enabled but you can disable caching for known users, URLs with parameters, or feeds separately. Set the constant “DISABLE_SUPERCACHE” to 1 in your wp-config.php if you want to only use WP-Cache caching.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you’re not comfortable with editing PHP files then use simple mode. It’s easy to set up and very fast.</p>
<h3>Recommended Settings</h3>
<ol>
<li>Simple caching.</li>
<li>Compress pages.</li>
<li>Don’t cache pages for known users.</li>
<li>Cache rebuild.</li>
<li>CDN support.</li>
<li>Extra homepage checks.</li>
</ol>
<p>Garbage collection is the act of cleaning up cache files that are out of date and stale. There’s no correct value for the expiry time but a good starting point is 1800 seconds.</p>
<p>Consider deleting the contents of the “Rejected User Agents” text box and allow search engines to cache files for you.</p>
<p>Preload as many posts as you can and enable “Preload Mode”. Garbage collection of old cached files will be disabled. If you don’t care about sidebar widgets updating often set the preload interval to 2880 minutes (2 days) so all your posts aren’t recached very often. When the preload occurs the cache files for the post being refreshed is deleted and then regenerated. Afterwards a garbage collection of all old files is performed to clean out stale cache files.<br />
Even with preload mode enabled cached files will still be deleted when posts are modified or comments made.</p>
<h3>Development</h3>
<ul>
<li>Active development of this plugin is handled <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/wp-super-cache" rel="nofollow ugc">on GitHub</a>.</li>
<li>Translation of the plugin into different languages is on the <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/wp-super-cache" rel="nofollow ugc">translation page</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Documentation</h3>
<p>If you need more information than the following, you can have a look at <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/wp-super-cache/wiki" rel="nofollow ugc">the wiki</a> or the <a href="https://odd.blog/wp-super-cache-developers/" rel="nofollow ugc">Developer documentation</a>.</p>
<h4>Preloading</h4>
<p>You can generate cached files for the posts, categories and tags of your site by preloading. Preloading will visit each page of your site generating a cached page as it goes along, just like any other visitor to the site. Due to the sequential nature of this function, it can take some time to preload a complete site if there are many posts.<br />
To make preloading more effective it can be useful to disable garbage collection so that older cache files are not deleted. This is done by enabling “Preload Mode” in the settings. Be aware however, that pages will go out of date eventually but that updates by submitting comments or editing posts will clear portions of the cache.</p>
<h4>Garbage Collection</h4>
<p>Your cache directory fills up over time, which takes up space on your server. If space is limited or billed by capacity, or if you worry that the cached pages of your site will go stale then garbage collection has to be done. Garbage collection happens on a regular basis and deletes old files in the cache directory. On the advanced settings page you can specify:<br />
1. Cache timeout. How long cache files are considered fresh for. After this time they are stale and can be deleted.<br />
2. Scheduler. Setup how often garbage collection should be done.<br />
3. Notification emails. You can be informed on garbage collection job progress.<br />
There’s no right or wrong settings for garbage collection. It depends on your own site.<br />
If your site gets regular updates, or comments then set the timeout to 1800 seconds, and set the timer to 600 seconds.<br />
If your site is mostly static you can disable garbage collection by entering 0 as the timeout, or use a really large timeout value.</p>
<p>The cache directory, usually wp-content/cache/ is only for temporary files. Do not ever put important files or symlinks to important files or directories in that directory. They will be deleted if the plugin has write access to them.</p>
<h4>CDN</h4>
<p>A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is usually a network of computers situated around the world that will serve the content of your website faster by using servers close to you. Static files like images, Javascript and CSS files can be served through these networks to speed up how fast your site loads. You can also create a “poor man’s CDN” by using a sub domain of your domain to serve static files too.</p>
<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/ossdl-cdn-off-linker/" rel="ugc">OSSDL CDN off-linker</a> has been integrated into WP Super Cache to provide basic CDN support. It works by rewriting the URLs of files (excluding .php files) in wp-content and wp-includes on your server so they point at a different hostname. Many CDNs support <a href="https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22origin+pull%22" rel="nofollow ugc">origin pull</a>. This means the CDN will download the file automatically from your server when it’s first requested, and will continue to serve it for a configurable length of time before downloading it again from your server.</p>
<p>Configure this on the “CDN” tab of the plugin settings page. This is an advanced technique and requires a basic understanding of how your webserver or CDNs work. Please be sure to clear the file cache after you configure the CDN.</p>
<h4>REST API</h4>
<p>There are now REST API endpoints for accessing the settings of this plugin. You’ll need to be authenticated as an admin user with permission to view the settings page to use it. This has not been documented yet but you can find all the code that deals with this in the “rest” directory.</p>
<h4>Custom Caching</h4>
<p>It is now possible to hook into the caching process using the add_cacheaction() function.</p>
<p>Three hooks are available:</p>
<ol>
<li>‘wp_cache_get_cookies_values’ – modify the key used by WP Cache.</li>
<li>‘add_cacheaction’ – runs in phase2. Allows a plugin to add WordPress hooks.</li>
<li>‘cache_admin_page’ – runs in the admin page. Use it to modify that page, perhaps by adding new configuration options.</li>
</ol>
<p>There is one regular WordPress filter too. Use the “do_createsupercache” filter<br />
to customize the checks made before caching. The filter accepts one parameter.<br />
The output of WP-Cache’s wp_cache_get_cookies_values() function.</p>
<p>WP Super Cache has its own plugin system. This code is loaded when WP Super Cache loads and can be used to change how caching is done. This is before most of WordPress loads so some functionality will not be available. Plugins can be located anywhere that PHP can load them. Add your own plugin either:</p>
<ul>
<li>by putting your plugin in the wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache-plugins directory, or</li>
<li>by calling wpsc_add_plugin( $name ) where $name is the full filename and path to the plugin. You only need to call that function once to add it. Use wpsc_delete_plugin( $name ) to remove it from the list of loaded plugins.</li>
</ul>
<p>The cookies WP Super Cache uses to identify “known users” can be modified now by adding the names of those cookies to a list in the plugin configuration. Use wpsc_add_cookie( $name ) to add a new cookie, and wpsc_delete_cookie( $name ) to remove it. The cookie names also modify the mod_rewrite rules used by the plugin but I recommend using Simple mode caching to avoid complications with updating the .htaccess file.<br />
The cookie name and value are used to differenciate users so you can have one cookie, but different values for each type of user on your site for example. They’ll be served different cache files.</p>
<p>See <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/wp-super-cache/blob/4cda5c0f2218e40e118232b5bf22d227fb3206b7/plugins/searchengine.php" rel="nofollow ugc">plugins/searchengine.php</a> as an example I use for my <a href="https://odd.blog/no-adverts-for-friends/" rel="nofollow ugc">No Adverts for Friends</a> plugin.</p>
<h3>Troubleshooting</h3>
<p>If things don’t work when you installed the plugin here are a few things to check:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is wp-content writable by the web server?</li>
<li>Is there a wp-content/wp-cache-config.php ? If not, copy the file wp-super-cache/wp-cache-config-sample.php to wp-content/wp-cache-config.php and make sure WPCACHEHOME points at the right place.</li>
<li>Is there a wp-content/advanced-cache.php ? If not, then you must copy wp-super-cache/advanced-cache.php into wp-content/. You must edit the file and change the path so it points at the wp-super-cache folder.</li>
<li>If pages are not cached at all, remove wp-content/advanced-cache.php and recreate it, following the advice above.</li>
<li>
<p>Make sure the following line is in wp-config.php and it is ABOVE the “require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);” line:</p>
<pre><code>define( 'WP_CACHE', true );
</code></pre>
</li>
<li>Try the Settings->WP Super Cache page again and enable cache.</li>
<li>Look in wp-content/cache/supercache/. Are there directories and files there?</li>
<li>Anything in your php error_log?</li>
<li>If your browser keeps asking you to save the file after the super cache is installed you must disable Super Cache compression. Go to the Settings->WP Super Cache page and disable it there.</li>
<li>The plugin does not work very well when PHP’s safe mode is active. This must be disabled by your administrator.</li>
<li>If pages are randomly super cached and sometimes not, your blog can probably be viewed with and without the “www” prefix on the URL. You should choose one way and install the <a href="http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/enforce-www-preference/" rel="nofollow ugc">Enforce www preference</a> plugin if you are using an old WordPress install. The latest versions redirect themselves (you should always be running the latest version of WordPress anyway!)</li>
<li>Private Server users at Dreamhost should edit wp-content/wp-cache-config.php and set the cache dir to “/tmp/” if they are getting errors about increasing CPU usage. See this <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/145895?replies=42" rel="ugc">discussion</a> for more.</li>
<li>File locking errors such as “failed to acquire key 0x152b: Permission denied in…” or “Page not cached by WP Super Cache. Could not get mutex lock.” are a sign that you may have to use file locking. Edit wp-content/wp-cache-config.php and uncomment “$use_flock = true” or set $sem_id to a different value. You can also disable file locking from the Admin screen as a last resort.</li>
<li>Make sure cache/wp_cache_mutex.lock is writable by the web server if using coarse file locking.</li>
<li>The cache folder cannot be put on an NFS or Samba or NAS share. It has to be on a local disk. File locking and deleting expired files will not work properly unless the cache folder is on the local machine.</li>
<li>
<p>Garbage collection of old cache files won’t work if WordPress can’t find wp-cron.php. If your hostname resolves to 127.0.0.1 it could be preventing the garbage collection from working. Check your access_logs for wp-cron.php entries. Do they return a 404 (file not found) or 200 code? If it’s 404 or you don’t see wp-cron.php anywhere WordPress may be looking for that script in the wrong place. You should speak to your server administator to correct this or edit /etc/hosts on Unix servers and remove the following line. Your hostname must resolve to the external IP address other servers on the network/Internet use. See http://yoast.com/wp-cron-issues/ for more. A line like “127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain” is ok.</p>
<pre><code>127.0.0.1 example.com
</code></pre>
</li>
<li>If old pages are being served to your visitors via the supercache, you may be missing Apache modules (or their equivalents if you don’t use Apache). 3 modules are required: mod_mime, mod_headers and mod_expires. The last two are especially important for making sure browsers load new versions of existing pages on your site.</li>
<li>The error message, “WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed!” appears at the end of every page. Open the file wp-content/advanced-cache.php in your favourite editor. Is the path to wp-cache-phase1.php correct? This file will normally be in wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/. If it is not correct the caching engine will not load.</li>
<li>Caching doesn’t work. The timestamp on my blog keeps changing when I reload. Check that the path in your .htaccess rules matches where the supercache directory is. You may have to hardcode it. Try disabling supercache mode.</li>
<li>
<p>If supercache cache files are generated but not served, check the permissions on all your wp-content/cache/supercache folders (and each of wp-content cache and supercache folders) and wp-content/cache/.htaccess. If your PHP runs as a different user to Apache and permissions are strict Apache may not be able to read the PHP generated cache files. To fix you must add the following line to your wp-config.php (Add it above the WP_CACHE define.) Then clear your cache.</p>
<pre><code>umask( 0022 );
</code></pre>
</li>
<li>
<p>If you see garbage in your browser after enabling compression in the plugin, compression may already be enabled in your web server. In Apache you must disable mod_deflate, or in PHP zlib compression may be enabled. You can disable that in three ways. If you have root access, edit your php.ini and find the zlib.output_compression setting and make sure it’s “Off” or add this line to your .htaccess:</p>
<pre><code>php_flag zlib.output_compression off
</code></pre>
<p>If that doesn’t work, add this line to your wp-config.php:</p>
<pre><code>ini_set('zlib.output_compression', 0);
</code></pre>
</li>
<li>The “white screen of death” or a blank page  when you visit your site is almost always caused by a PHP error but <a href="http://www.johnberns.com/2010/03/19/wp-super-cache-blank-page-problem-fixed/" rel="nofollow ugc">it may also be caused by APC</a>. Disable that PHP extension if you have trouble and replace with eAccelerator or Xcache.</li>
<li>After uninstalling, your permalinks may break if you remove the WordPress mod_rewrite rules too. Regenerate those rules by visiting the Settings->Permalink page and saving that form again.</li>
<li>If your blog refuses to load make sure your wp-config.php is correct. Are you missing an opening or closing PHP tag?</li>
<li>Your front  …</li>
</ol>


WP Super Cache


I've been using this caching plugin since before Automattic took over management. Since I don't get very much in the way of comments on my site, the vast majority of hits are anonymous and don't change what should be on the page next time, so a static cache helps a *lot*.


Major speedup for the typical use case


It is very easy to use and optimally accelerates the website(s). Many thanks for the free version, it's simply brilliant.


Very helpful tool

A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files.

Instant Back/Forward vs WP Super Cache