I really love an efficient WordPress plugin that helps keep your WordPress database optimized as well as helps you remove unwanted items that pile up over time. For instance did you know that every time you leave your WordPress post editor open and keep working in it, WordPress will keep saving auto drafts and post revisions? Without a plugin to limit the revision count you could have dozens of revisions for the same post cluttering up your WordPress database that just stay there untouched months after your post is published.
This is just one of the reasons I recommend WP-Optimize
Installing and Using WP-Optimize
Step 1 – Install the WP-Optimize Plugin
From inside WordPress, click on Plugins –> Add Plugins
Search for WP-Optimize
Click Install
Click Activate
Or you can download WP-Optimize from the WordPress Plugin Library [link] and upload it manually.
Step 2 – Optimizing your WordPress Database
After you install and activate the WP-Optimize WordPress plugin you will then see the menu show up in your WordPress dashboard to the left. All you need to do is click on WP-Optimize and you will be taken to the WP-Optimize configuration screen.
On this screen you have five options which you can check one or all of them and then a Process button to execute the functions you have selected. Underneath these options you will see all of the WordPress database tables that exist for this WordPress installation and you will see recommendations on whether the table is already optimized or needs to be optimized.
You can see just on my smaller blog I had 201 post revisions in my database, on larger blogs that don’t do optimization you can see thousands of revisions just sitting in the database as wasted space.
The database in this example is very small, but just showing what it looks like when optimization is recommended from the WP-Optimize plugin.
At the very bottom you will get an example of the size of the database, and how much could be saved by optimizing it. Here is an example of my Dragon Blogger Technology blog WordPress Database over at http://www.dragonblogger.com after just 1 month between optimizations.
Now for DragonBlogger case most of that comes from wasted pending comments, when using an external commenting system like Livefyre or Disqus many spam comments will end up in your comment pending or spam box, you will need a plugin like WP-Optimize to purge them since you don’t have to manually do anything with them, they are either filtered by Disqus or not, and you just need to make sure they don’t stay in your WordPress pending folders and constantly grow.
WP-Optimize is highly recommended to help keep your WordPress database trim for your blog installations and I recommend running it about 1x per month or more frequently if you run a multi-author blog and use Disqus since you can get a lot of non-approved spam comments clogging it up.
This is an original article from WP Cypher Copyright 2012
