W3 Cache and Responsive Design – A Simple Solution

Should you be caching?

Caching plugins are an amazing implementation of websites in the past recent years, and just one of the many ways in which we can increase the performance of our website to our viewers. It goes without saying that people viewing your website will cease if it is too slow or doesn’t work properly.

The potential Problem?

There are many solutions for this, including CDN, Database optimisation, Caching, and more. Personally I use all these methods but have noted that, at some points, the responsive aspect of the design ceases to function properly when using W3 cache. This is not unheard of and is a relatively common problem, but just as it’s commonality, the solution is somewhat familiar to those who have encountered this problem.

When using W3 cache, change the settings of the “Minify” function to “Manual” rather than “Auto”.

Performance -> General -> Minify -> Change from “Auto” to Manual”.

The second step is to enable the available user agent groups, both high and low.

Performance -> User Agent Groups -> Under “High”, click “Enable” and under “Low” click “Enable”.

This will ensure your website’s responsive design doesn’t get interrupted while still enjoying the features of W3 Cache. Personally I love this plugin and use it on all my websites to increase their performance.