How to Optimize WordPress Database With / Without Plugin

When you have a website, it is important to maintain and optimize the database for better performance. The database expands every time you update or make any changes to your site. The larger the database becomes the longer the data retrieval time would be. This larger database would affect the performance of your website and its traffic. That’s why we are here to tell you how to optimize your WordPress database to avoid inefficiency and make your site/blog fast and efficient.

Ways to Optimize WordPress Database

There are two possible ways or methods to optimize your WordPress Database and reduce your WordPress load. They are

• With Plugin
• Without Plugin

Optimize WordPress Database With Plugin

There are several plugins out there in the WordPress Plugin store to optimize the WordPress database but upon all those plugins WP-Optimize, part of team UpdraftPlus (which is one of the best backup plugins for WordPress).

[1] From your WordPress dashboard, click on Plugins.

[2] Click on Add New Plugin and search for the WP-Optimize plugin.

[3] Click Install Now to start downloading and installing the plugin.

[4] Once the plugin installed, click on Activate to add the plugin to the dashboard.

[5] Now click on WP-Optimize below the settings section on your dashboard.

[6] On the Plugin Settings page, you will be displayed with the set of operations that the plugin would perform.

[7] Read the operation carefully and check/uncheck the items you need to optimize.

Note: The operations that are marked in red indicated in-depth operations which results in loss of data. So before checking those operations, make sure to have a backup of your WordPress site.

[8] Once selected click on Run All Selected Optimization to begun the optimization process.

Tips! You can also do optimization separately for each operation by clicking on Run Optimization next to the optimization note.

[9] That’s it, this will optimize all your WordPress databases to perfect condition.

Optional: You can also set the auto-optimization process for a period of time and also have control over what data should be removed and what should be optimized from the WP-Optimization settings.

Optimize WordPress Database Without Plugin

The manual method of optimizing the Database includes a huge amount of risk, which results in the loss of some important site data. So, make sure to have a complete database backup of your WordPress site before performing the optimization process.

[1] Launch the WordPress site cPanel your wish to optimize the database.

[2] Choose phpMyAdmin tile from the cPanel main menu.

[3] Here you can see the list of the database table.

What is Database Table? These are the 12 common tables available on your WordPress database by default (this may vary depending upon the WordPress update).

• wp_commentmeta
• wp_comments
• wp_links
• wp_options
• wp_postmeta
• wp_posts
• wp_terms
• wp_termmeta
• wp_term_relationships
• wp_term_taxonomy
• wp_usermeta
• wp_users

The additional database table apart from the one that is mentioned below is based upon the plugin and add-ons added on your WordPress site.

[4] Check the table you need to optimize on your database.

Note: If you have no idea on what database table should be optimized, check the Size and Overhead column and select all the databases with overhead and large sizes. Because optimization will remove the overhead completely and minimize the overall database size.

[5] Once you reviewed and checked the desired databases, select Optimize table from the dropbox below the table.

[6] Now click on Go in the bottom right to start the optimization process.

[7] After the completion of optimization, you will be notified with the message “Your SQL query has been executed successfully”

You can also go to the Query section and add the following query to begin the optimization process

OPTIMIZE TABLE 'Any Database Table name' 

Example: OPTIMIZE TABLE ‘wp_comments’

Conclusion

These are the possible ways to optimize your WordPress database, once the WordPress Database is optimized, you can see some major improvements in your site speed, traffic, and many more. Also before using either of the methods, make sure to have a backup of your WordPress with the best WordPress backup plugins we have mentioned in the article. For more updates on WordPress, explore our site.