Common Questions for Super Page Cache
This page answers common questions about the Super Page Cache plugin, covering how caching works, configuration options like the Fallback Cache and Preloader, and the difference between the Purge Cache and Force Purge actions.
In this article
Can I use this plugin to take advantage of Cloudflare's Cache Everything rule, bypassing the cache for logged-in users even if I'm using the free plan?
Yes! This is the main purpose of the plugin.
Does this plugin also perform CSS and Javascript optimizations?
Super Page Cache does not minify CSS or JavaScript files. It does include other file-optimization features — removing unused CSS, deferring or delaying JavaScript, and unloading individual assets per page — that change how those files are delivered without rewriting them. See Troubleshoot File Optimization and PageSpeed Verification for how these features differ from minification.
If you specifically need CSS or JavaScript minification, you can use the plugin together with an optimization plugin such as Autoptimize, WP Rocket, or any other optimization plugin — just keep page caching handled only by Super Page Cache.
The purpose of this plugin is to get you the lowest possible response times (Time to First Byte aka TTFB) by using Cloudflare as a page caching system while maintaining full control of the cache.
What is the swcfpc=1 parameter and when does it appear?
?swcfpc=1 is a cache-buster parameter the plugin can append to let logged-in users bypass the Cloudflare cache. By default it is turned off through the Remove Cache Buster Query Parameter option, so nothing is appended to internal links, and the plugin handles cache bypass for logged-in users through response headers and cookies instead.
If you are still seeing ?swcfpc=1 on your site, it is likely left over from a legacy installation. You can use the SEO redirect option in the Advanced tab of the plugin settings to automatically redirect any URLs containing ?swcfpc=1 to their normal URL, avoiding duplicate content issues.
Can I restore all Cloudflare settings as before the plugin activation?
Yes! You can by clicking on the Reset All Settings button in the Quick Actions sidebar of the plugin settings.
Why do all the pages have "BYPASS" as the cf-cache-status?
Cloudflare does not add in cache pages with cookies because they can have dynamic contents. If you want to force this behavior, strip out cookies by enabling the option Strip response cookies on pages that should be cached.
What is Fallback Cache?
Fallback Cache is an option to generate a static HTML version of the web pages inside your site. This is a great option and can increase your site speed dramatically. The way Cloudflare works is that it will only cache a page to its global CDN network if it has received any request for those pages. So, if you don't have a fallback cache, for the first few requests, your server will be executing the pages and sending the HTML to the user, which increases slowness and latency.
Our fallback cache system follows the same standard that Cloudflare follows when it caches a page to its CDN edge. This way we generate the HTML version of the webpage before a user has requested that page. By doing this, when any user accesses the webpage for the first time, the page loads super fast as it is already loading a rendered HTML rather than waiting for the server to generate HTML and pass that to the users.
Our fallback cache system works way better than any other disk cache system and plugins out there in the market. In short, now you don't need to install any other caching plugin in conjunction with Super Page Cache, as the plugin can now handle Cloudflare caching and disk caching.
What is Preloader and how it works?
The preloader is a simple crawler that is started in the background and aims to preload pages so that they are cached immediately.
Once the preloader is enabled, you need to specify which preloading logic to use among those available. You can choose a combination of options (sitemaps, WordPress menus, recently published posts, etc.).
It is also possible to automatically start the preloader when the cache is cleared.
In order to avoid overloading the server, only one preloader will be started at once. It is therefore not possible to start more than one preloader at the same time. Furthermore, between one preload and the other, there will be a waiting time of 2 seconds.
If you want to run the preloader in the middle of the night when you have low users, you can run the preloader over the CRON job as well.
What is the difference between Purge Cache and Force purge everything actions?
If the "Purge HTML pages only" option is enabled, clicking on the "Purge Cache" button only HTML pages already in cache will be deleted from Cloudflare's cache.
If for some reason you need to delete static files (such as CSS, images, and scripts) from Cloudflare's cache, you can do so by clicking on "Force purge everything".
To know which URLs to target, Purge HTML pages only keeps a list of the HTML pages that have been cached. The plugin stores this list as one small .tmp file per cached page in the wp-content/wp-cloudflare-super-page-cache/<your-domain>/cached_html_pages/ folder. Each file contains only the page URL and a timestamp. It is not a cached copy of the page. These files are created even when Enable Disk Page cache is off, because they support selective Cloudflare purging rather than serving pages from your server. The same list also powers the Cached Pages card on the plugin dashboard.
The plugin removes the tracked files each time the cache is purged, but on a site with many pages they can build up between purges and use a noticeable part of your hosting account's inode (file count) limit. If you prefer to avoid these files, you can turn off the option without affecting Cloudflare edge caching. Regular purges then clear the whole Cloudflare cache, including static files, and the Cached Pages list is no longer available.
To stop the plugin from creating the files:
- In your WordPress dashboard, go to Super Page Cache > Settings.
- On the General tab, turn on Show advanced settings if it is not already on.
- Open the Advanced tab and, in the Cache section, turn off Purge HTML pages only.
- Click Update Settings.
- Using your hosting file manager or an FTP client, open the
wp-content/wp-cloudflare-super-page-cache/<your-domain>/cached_html_pages/folder and delete the existing.tmpfiles. Once the option is off, the plugin no longer removes these files for you. Leave theindex.phpfile in place.