Preloading & preheating in SG optimizer

Hi,

I noticed in the changelog that as of version 7.0.0 this feature is introduced:
NEW – Cache Preloading (requires FB Caching)

This includes also a “preheat feature” that loads a page in the cache even without a “human visit” via browser.

Up to today I’m using for a large real estate website with about 400 custom posts (= the properties) WP Rocket to preload all pages, included the dynamic single post page for each property + the archive pages. WP Rocket uses sitemaps to determine the pages/custom posts to be preloaded.

On daily basis there are updates to properties on the website: new properties get added, existing ones are changed (for example from “for sale” to “sold”), some are deleted,… The problem with WPRocket at this moment is that once one single property is changed, all the cached pages for all about 400 properties are deleted, and the preloading is initiated again. The good thing is: at least the preloading is initiated, but the bad thing is that preloading 400+ pages takes a lot of time. More logic would be to only purge the cached page for that one single property, leaving all the others “untouched” in the cache, and of course also purge all other pages where this property is shown (for example the archive page, but also the home page showing the 10 most recently added properties).

That said, I was wondering if moving from WPRocket to SG Optimizer would be an option for this. I did few test on a staging environment, and I have the impression it is the same as WPRocket, but I wanted to check if this “as designed” or not. Maybe it’s due to the fact I’m testing this on a password protected staging environment.

To summarize I have 2 main questions:

1. I have the impression the “preheat feature” is not really putting all pages in the cache without someone having to visit them. Maybe it’s due to my test on a staging environment, but I have to click on a property, it loads slow (heavy dynamic page) and then the second, third, fourth,.. click it is fast. Shouldn’t the “preheat feature” result in a fast load even when the property is loaded the first time by a human in the browser?

2. If a change is done to one single property, shouldn’t all the other – let’s say 399 – dynamic “properties pages” remain in the cache? I would expect that only the one single property that changed is purged from the cache, and immediately preloaded (or preheated) again. Of course, also “dependent” pages (such as the archive page containing that property, and the homepage…) should be purged and preloaded. Or is this not at all how this preloading works?

Thanks for any insights/feedback on this!

Kr,
Jens from Hepto