You can still use WP Rocket with Ezoic and I am gonna tell you why I did it and how I did it without affecting my earnings and cache hit rate.
I had stopped using WP Rocket but I decided to give it another chance after they added the “Remove unused css feature”
WP Rocket does a really good job removing the unused css and inlining it in the HTML.
Table of Contents
Why don’t you use Ezoic Leap?
Ezoic Leap is still in beta, I checked what they have to offer and I didn’t see anything extraordinary in the optimization setting tab.
There are a couple interesting things here and there but nothing that could take my speed to the next level in terms of speed.
They have more sections pretending to be GTMetrix, Google Page Insights and Google Search Console and I think that they are reinventing the wheel.
Plus there is not too much documentation about the impact of the features included in Leap, we don’t know the developers behind, we don’t see them performing tests, giving news, breaking down what Leap does.
You can read my Ezoic Leap Review if you want to know why I turned it off.
Why WP Rocket?
I am not a big fan of WP Rocket, I use it if I think I needed.
I had a couple of weeks left in my current subscription and I knew they have a new feature to remove unused CSS.
The new feature removes the unused CSS and inlines the used CSS in the HTML.
They also have an option to minify and load JavaScript deferred .
With those two optimizations, I don’t have any render-blocking issues.
I think that you can get faster results with FlyingPress but the plugin is a bit more expensive than WP Rocket.
I like the approach of making my sites fast without relying on Ezoic, If I want to get back to Adsense or switch to another network, I already have a fast website.
WP Rocket and Ezoic Conflicts?
If you don’t know the basic of speed optimization that could be done in WordPress, you might follow like you were in a cult what others tell you.
I am a bit of a rebel, I test things and the things I implemented improve things, I am gonna keep them.
Ezoic doesn’t recommend caching plugins so they show a warning if you have enabled leap.
I hope Ezoic doesn’t start a war against Caching plugins in a near future.
I understand that they have their tool but some of us might find less problems using the tools that we have already used before.
I have achieved a good cache hit rate:
I am sure it is gonna get better
How to Use WP Rocket with Ezoic
These are my recommendations when using Ezoic and WP Rocket
- Choose a lightweight theme and don’t apply none of that fancy stuff in them that adds more JavaScript and CSS to the site.
- Try not to add images and video above the fold, add them way below the fold so these are lazy loaded by WordPress.
- Don’t use page builders if you can, use Gutenberg blocks instead.
- If you use CloudFlare, create a rule to bypass CloudFlare Caching.
- Apply Code Snippets or use PerfMatters to get rid of some requests loaded by WordPress such as embeds, emojis, dashicons and so much more.
- If you are using Ezoic, create a staging site and run test in GTMetrix to know how fast your site is. If your site is slow without ads, it will be twenty times slower with ads.
- Deactivate Leap
In WP Rocket, I don’t have many options activated.
Caching
The caching and the caching for mobile devices is activated by default. My Cache lifespan is set to 90 days to avoid any conflict with Ezoic.
File Optimization
In this section I have activated these options
- Minify CSS Files
- Remove Unused CSS
- Minify JavaScript Files
- Load JavaScript Deferred
Preloading
In this section, I have activated:
- Preloading
- Sitemap-based cache preloading
- SEO Press XML sitemap (Automatically Detected)
There are other options that you can check based on your needs, when you have everything set up in WP Rocket
- I clear Ezoic Caching
- I clear cache in WP Rocket
- I preload the cache
- I check in Google Page Insights to make sure if the CSS has been inlined and the JS deferred.
Final Thoughts
Remember that real tests in Google Page Insights have to show ads.
if you run tests in Google Page Insights and you see white space where ads should go, that is not real test because people will see ads.
You are deceiving yourself if that’s the way you get hundreds on Mobile and Desktop. That means that ads have been delayed on purpose or they might be slow.
That’s the reason why I have read Ezoic guys trashing GTMetrix because those test show the ads that people are gonna see.
Why don’t they like speed test with 6 ads above the fold, the 506 requests and 20 seconds fully loaded time?
Of course they are gonna love those speed tests with blank spaces everywhere?
Did you really think that you can have perfect scores with a bunch of ads above the fold?
Having said you can still pass Core Web Vitals. Field data matters.
