Make Me Static, Static Site Generator, Git, Pages and Live Stats vs DietPress

Welcome to the Make Me Static Plugin for WordPress. This plugin is a static site generator and aims to create and maintain a static copy of your WordPress website within a Git repository. This version includes automatic access to a free Git solution and Page provider platform. (so no setup or credentials are necessary) Alternatively the static site can be generated and stored in a GitLab Git Repository that can be used as a source for a static page platform such as CloudFlare Pages. The plugin provides customised sitemap and change tracking which connects to an external crawling service which does all the heavy lifting. We have made great efforts in this version to minimise the configuration required to get going, if you have any problems (with anything) please let is know and we’ll do our best to help. Check out this YouTube video for an introduction to static front-ends and a walk-through of converting a pre-existing WordPress site into a WordPress site with a static front-end. How the service works The plugin connects to a directory service on the Internet at one of the directory URL’s listed below. This in turn will point the plugin to a ‘crawler’ that has been allocated to your site. When you ask the plugin to make a static copy of your site, it will instruct the crawler to visit all the pages on your site to determine which have changed since it’s last visit. Any changed pages will be copied to a Git repository, which in turn can publish pages directly to a page hosting service. The default option is to use a Git account hosted by MadPenguin, and to publish the site on MadPenguin’s page hosting platform. As a result the default options do not require any specific Git or Page hosting configuration to get going. If on the other hand you choose to use a hosted Git service such as GitLab, you will need to enter some credentials for your online account, and from there configure your GitLab account to publish to a page hosting service. Once you have successfully published a static copy of your site, all you need to do is point your domain at the address of the page hosting service, and asssuming your domain matches the one you entered when setting up your profile within the plugin, you should be up and running. The service retains a metadata database for the site which includes file names, sizes and modification times, together with any credentials that have been added when creating a profile. (Sensitive credentials and other information is encrypted at rest). The external service is responsible for all scanning and processing activities to mitigate strain on the WordPress server. The only private data transferred to the external service is the information you enter when creating a profile. All other information is obtained via an anonymous external scan, hence publically available. If you have selected the default Git option, then the service will also retain a static copy of the site. Useful references The service product page Terms and Conditions of Service Privacy Policy Getting Started Service Status Support Forum Make me static directory service URL’s; https://mms-directory-1.madpenguin.uk https://mms-directory-2.madpenguin.uk https://mms-directory-3.madpenguin.uk Other URL’s used to load code; https://assets.makemestatic.com, source for stage-2 crawler UI https://status.makemestatic.com, endpoints that indicate the currently deployed version of a site https://weblogs.makemestatic.com, source for dynamically loaded weblogs data / websockets https://mms-crawler-*.madpenguin.uk, location of the actual crawlers (via websocket) Note that this in an integrated solution, the 3rd party crawling service is owned and operated by the plugin authors on a combination of cloud hosted and on premesis equipment. Live Web Statistics (experimental) If you opt to use the integrated Pages platform, this also provides a live WebStats option that uses the following URL; https://weblogs.makemestatic.com This allows live webstats to be seamlessly delivered into your control panel and updated in real-time via a websocket connection. Do not use this URL directly! This URL is only referenced once you click on the webstats icon next to your profile. How Does it work? The WordPress site is scanned by the MMS service under direction from the WordPress plugin. This off-loads the scanning process to specialised software which aims to minimise the loading on the WordPress server while scans are in progress. There are three types of scan that can be performed; An “update”, which literally only looks at entries with changed sitemap timestamps (this is very quick and great for typo’s and any changes that only affect a single page) A “synchronise”, typically this will scan every asset on the WordPress site and compare a checksum of each asset against it’s database to see if it’s changed since the last scan. Any changes are then transferred to the connected Git repository. A “Git verification”, this is like a “synchronise”, but also scans the Git repository for assets that are no longer referenced by the site (and removes them). As the site is scanned “from the outside” there should be no risk of the plugins actions exposing any data that isn’t already public. By the same token the external service has no ability to modify WordPress so the security footprint of the plugin is tiny. Feature bullet points The plugin provides a way to produce a static copy of your website in a git repository The result is compatible with both Github pages and CloudFlare pages for automatic publication Multiple profiles are supported for (A+B_…) testing Various scan rates are supported from one page per 5s to 7 cores flat out Scheduled updates are supported and automated scanning Currently “Gitlab” is supported with plans for GitHub and on-prem Gitlab Support push services (WebPushr) to automatically notify subscribers on scan completion Issue tracker for each profile to diagnose problems Handles current and historical issues Ability to acknowlede or delete issues when resolved GUI access to the internal asset database Search as you type filtering Pinning (force assets to be scanned regardless of perceived change) Selective / manual queueing of assets for testing Ability to include manual / static assets in the scan (in the WP tree but unmanaged by WP) Ability to exclude specific files and folders Setup Wizard is included for a guided profile creation The Technology The Plugin presents as a WordPress Admin / plugin page Backend connections are made over websockets using PKI The crawler respects Robots.txt, (make sure the “MMSbot” agent is allowed on your site) MMS Javascript runs in an isolated module and CSS “plays nice” with WordPress Global CSS and theming is partitioned and user editable (if you feel the need …) All of the front-end JS code and PHP is either GPL2 or MIT licensed Backend-code is all based on the Orbit Framework (the framework and DB are all MIT licensed) Orbit is a ‘real time’ framework, so the admin panel is 100% reactive. Progress bar updates are typically “per percent” granularity All statuses, totals, etc, are updated as they happen Unless you’ve hit a bug, there is no mileage in reloading the MMS plugin page If you change your license information, it will change in real-time If the crawler allocated to your site changes (perhaps due to a license upgrade) then the appropriate version of the crawler UI will be uploaded “into” the page from the new crawler.

DietPress is a free WordPress speed optimization plugin with a built-in page cache. Page caching, browser caching, GZIP and Brotli compression, deferred JavaScript, critical CSS, image loading attributes, preloading, locally hosted Google Fonts and selective asset loading, all in one plugin and all free. And it goes further than a caching plugin: it also puts WordPress itself on a diet, switching off the features your site never uses. It pairs that with a clean, risk-based interface. Everything is configurable, the optimizations are already on by default, and nothing is hidden behind a paid tier. Activate it and your site is faster, or open the settings and tune every detail. By default WordPress loads functions, services and scripts that most sites do not need. They slow down loading times and consume hosting resources. DietPress lets you trim that fat and apply battle-tested performance tweaks, with a clear description of what each option does and what might break, organized by risk level so you always know what is safe. WHY CHOOSE DIETPRESS Page caching, for free. Serve anonymous visitors a copy stored on disk instead of building the page again. The feature people buy WP Rocket or a NitroPack subscription for, with no licence and no monthly fee. No drop-in, no changes to wp-config.php. Unlike WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache, DietPress installs no advanced-cache.php and never edits wp-config.php. Switching it off leaves your site exactly as it was, with nothing orphaned behind. It tells you why. Most cache plugins leave you guessing when nothing is cached. DietPress reports its own status, tests itself against your home page, and names the exact reason a page was skipped. WooCommerce-safe by design. Carts, checkout, my account and any visitor carrying a cart cookie always get the live site, so nobody ever sees somebody else’s basket. Diet as well as speed. Where Perfmatters focuses on disabling scripts, DietPress covers that ground and adds page caching, critical CSS, local Google Fonts and a dashboard, admin and email cleanup, in one plugin. Light on your server. No account, no external service, no telemetry, no upsell nags. Everything runs on your own hosting. WHAT THE PAGE CACHE DOES TO YOUR RESPONSE TIME Measured on a WordPress 7.0 install with GeneratePress, WooCommerce and a 76 product catalogue, PHP 8.5, taking the median of 15 requests per URL. Your own hosting will give different figures, but the shape of the result will not change. Server response time, the same pages with the page cache off and on: Home page – 52.7 ms without, 15.1 ms with, 71% faster WooCommerce shop – 45.4 ms without, 14.8 ms with, 67% faster A 110 KB article – 43.0 ms without, 15.1 ms with, 65% faster A 98 KB page – 41.0 ms without, 14.9 ms with, 64% faster A product category – 41.3 ms without, 15.1 ms with, 63% faster The interesting part is not the percentage, it is that the cached figure barely moves. Serving a stored file costs the same whether the page was cheap or expensive to build, so the saving grows with the size of your site rather than with the power of your server. The heaviest page in the test is the one that gained most. It also changes how much traffic your hosting can take at once. In the same test the server went from serving about 40 visits a second to more than 210, five times as many, on exactly the same plan. That is what keeps a small site standing up when one of your posts does well. TWO THINGS IN ONE PLUGIN 1. Performance optimizations (on by default) Automatic Critical CSS inlined in the head (optional experimental deferral of non-critical CSS) JavaScript defer parsing with smart dependency handling Image loading attributes safety net: lazy loading, decoding=async and fetchpriority for images that bypass core Automatic image dimensions for better CLS scores (including picture elements) Resource hints: preconnect and DNS prefetch for common third-party origins Theme stylesheet, critical fonts and logo preloading for a faster LCP Google Fonts display=swap Google Fonts local hosting: serve the fonts your theme uses from your own server, GDPR-friendly with a silent fallback to the Google CDN (opt-in) Selective third-party loading: WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, block library, Slider Revolution, TablePress, Smash Balloon, Formidable Forms and Everest Forms assets only load where they are used (opt-in) RSS feed optimization (cache headers and item limit) Server rules in .htaccess: browser caching with a configurable lifetime for media, for styles and scripts and for fonts, GZIP and Brotli compression, immutable cache headers, CORS for fonts and keep-alive (master switch plus per-feature toggles) Database maintenance: daily expired-transient cleanup and safe query optimizations Page cache: store each page on disk and serve it to anonymous visitors without building it again, with automatic purging, gzip precompression and a status panel that says whether it is working (opt-in, in its own tab) 2. Put WordPress on a diet (risk-based, opt-in) Light (safe for any site): emojis, RSD/WLW tags, shortlinks, self-pingbacks, comment pagination, and more Moderate (evaluate first): oEmbed, jQuery Migrate, Dashicons on the frontend, Global Styles and Duotone, remote block patterns, avatars and Gravatar, comment threading, and more Strict (site-specific): granular RSS feed control, Heartbeat API mode, post revisions and autosave, disable comments, XML sitemap, native lazy loading/fetchpriority, content types, selective loading for WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, block assets, Slider Revolution, TablePress, Smash Balloon, Formidable Forms and Everest Forms, and more Widgets: dashboard widgets (including third-party ones from Yoast, WooCommerce, Elementor, Jetpack, Wordfence, Rank Math, Gravity Forms), classic sidebar widgets, block-editor widgets and the Customizer Emails: silence the automatic emails WordPress sends on its own, grouped by area: auto-update results for core, plugins and themes (plus the new-version notice), comment moderation and new-comment notices, and new user, password and email-change notices, plus toggles for the admin email verification prompt and post-by-email. Every option is off by default, and critical notices such as a failed core update are always kept SCALE, PROFILES AND ANALYZER Savings indicator: HTTP requests removed, CSS/JS saved and active optimizations at a glance Quick profiles: Personal Blog, WooCommerce Store, Landing Page and Maximum Cleanup Site analyzer: personalized recommendations based on your active plugins and content, page cache included Import and export your whole configuration as a JSON file COMPATIBILITY AND EXTENSIBILITY The plugin includes filters for developers: dietpress_critical_css – Customize the inline critical CSS dietpress_critical_css_handles – Define which CSS handles are critical dietpress_skip_defer_script_handles – Opt scripts out of the JavaScript defer dietpress_skip_defer_style_handles – Opt stylesheets out of the CSS deferral dietpress_preconnect_hints – Customize preconnect origins dietpress_dns_prefetch_domains – Customize DNS prefetch domains dietpress_critical_fonts – Define critical fonts to preload dietpress_exclude_local_fonts – Exclude Google Fonts stylesheets from local hosting dietpress_selective_{module}_has_content – Mark a page as showing the content of a selective loading module, so its assets are kept. The module is wc, cf7, formidable, everest_forms or revslider dietpress_selective_{module}_styles / dietpress_selective_{module}_scripts – Adjust the handles removed by each module dietpress_selective_page_hides_content – Mark a page as rendering content the content scan cannot reach, so no module removes anything (this is what handles Elementor) dietpress_selective_is_wc_page – Override the WooCommerce page detection of selective loading dietpress_selective_wc_keep_cart_fragments – Keep the cart fragments script when your theme has a hand-coded mini-cart dietpress_selective_cf7_has_form – Mark pages that load a Contact Form 7 form dynamically dietpress_selective_blocks_dequeue – Override the block library dequeue decision dietpress_selective_everest_forms_dequeue_dashicons – Keep Dashicons when another plugin enqueues it directly dietpress_native_sitemap_in_use – Tell DietPress your plugin builds on the native WordPress sitemap, so the option that removes it becomes unavailable dietpress_cache_bypass – Keep the current page out of the page cache dietpress_cache_bypass_cookies – Adjust the cookie name prefixes that make a visitor uncacheable dietpress_cache_ignored_params – Adjust the query parameters that do not change the page dietpress_cache_exclude_urls – Adjust the excluded URL patterns dietpress_cache_post_urls – Adjust the URLs purged along with a post Compatible with: Well-coded themes and page builders (Divi, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Bricks Gutenberg) Cache plugins (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, etc.). The one exception is the optional page cache module, which will not run beside another page cache and says so; everything else in DietPress works alongside them as it always has Security plugins (DietPress focuses on performance and deliberately leaves security to them; we recommend our free Vigilant) CDNs (Cloudflare, StackPath, KeyCDN, etc.) thanks to CORS and Vary headers WordPress Multisite (except the optional page cache module, which does not support it yet) HOW TO VERIFY THE OPTIMIZATIONS Cache rules: check your .htaccess for a block marked # BEGIN DietPress with immutable Cache-Control headers Logo preload: view page source and look for pointing to your logo Critical CSS: view source and look for in the head Compression: test at giftofspeed.com/gzip-test Always measure with tools like Google PageSpeed, GTMetrix or WebPageTest, and run each test at least twice to account for caching. Support Need private support or custom development? Do you need one-on-one help, priority troubleshooting, or a custom feature, integration, or tweak built specifically for your site? I offer private support and custom development. Just contact me and tell me what you need. Need help or have suggestions? Official website WordPress support forum YouTube channel Documentation and tutorials Love the plugin? Please leave us a 5-star review and help spread the word! About AyudaWP We are specialists in WordPress security, SEO, AI and performance optimization plugins. We create tools that solve real problems for WordPress site owners while maintaining the highest coding standards and accessibility requirements.