It’s no secret that a well-optimize WordPress database can help improve the performance of your website.
In this article, we will show you how to optimize your WordPress database for better performance.
First things first, let’s take a look at how WordPress stores data in its database. Every time you create or edit a post or page, WordPress will store that data in the form of a “revision”. Revisions are essentially drafts of your content that are stored in the database.
If you have ever made a mistake while editing a post or page and needed to “restore” an older version, you were likely taking advantage of revisions. By default, WordPress will save revisions of your content every time you make a change.
While this is a useful feature, it can also bloat your database and impact performance. We’ll show you how to limit the number of revisions that are stored in your database later on in this article.
For now, let’s take a look at some other ways you can optimize your WordPress database.
1. Delete Unused Themes and Plugins
One of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce the size of your WordPress database is by deleting unused themes and plugins. If you have themes or plugins installed that you are not using, be sure to delete them from your server. Not only will this free up space in your database, it will also help improve security as unused themes and plugins can be exploited by hackers.
2. Delete spam comments
Another way to reduce the size of your WordPress database is by deleting spam comments. By default, WordPress will store all comments in your database, even if they are marked as spam.
If you have a lot of spam comments, they can quickly add up and bloat your database. To delete spam comments, you can either use a plugin like Akismet or manually delete them from the database.
3. Optimize Your Database Tables
Over time, your WordPress database can become fragmented. This means that data is stored in different parts of the database instead of being stored together.
When this happens, it can cause your website to run slowly as the server has to work harder to piece together the data it needs to display your content.
You can optimize your WordPress database tables by running a SQL query. This will defragment your database and help improve performance.
4. Remove unused short codes
If you are using a lot of short codes on your website, chances are there are some that you are no longer using. Short codes are essentially pieces of code that allow you to do things like embed videos or create columns in your posts and pages.
While they can be very useful, they can also bloat your database if you have too many of them. To remove unused short codes, you can either use a plugin or manually delete them from the database.
5. Limit the number of revisions stored in the database
As we mentioned earlier, WordPress will save a revision of your content every time you make a change. While this is a useful feature, it can also impact performance as revisions can bloat your database.
To limit the number of revisions that are stored in your database, you can add the following line of code to your wp-config.php file:
Define (‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 3);
This code will tell WordPress to only save three revisions of each post or page. You can change the number to whatever you like, but we recommend keeping it relatively low to minimize the impact on your database.
Now that we’ve covered some general tips for optimizing your WordPress database, let’s take a look at some specific ways you can optimize your database tables.
Conclusion:
By following the tips in this article, you can optimize your WordPress database and improve performance. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.
As you can see, there are a number of ways you can optimize your WordPress database. By following the tips in this article, you can help improve performance and reduce the size of your database.
