Your WP ULike database stores all of your voting data in multiple tables. This includes posts, comments, BuddyPress activities, and bbPress topics. It also stores meta fields and plugin settings.
In this guide, you will learn about WP ULike database structure, and why it’s important to optimize your website regularly.
Understanding the Database Tables
Although WP ULike’s performance has been greatly optimized using advanced algorithms to date, and all queries have an optimal structure, this does not diminish the importance of database optimization.
If you check your database, you will see the 5 tables listed below which has been created by the WP ULike plugin:
- wp_ulike – Stores post types logs
- wp_ulike_comments – Stores comments logs
- wp_ulike_activities – Stores BuddyPress logs
- wp_ulike_forums – Stores bbPress logs
- wp_ulike_meta – Stores meta-information about counters, stats, user status, etc.
All of these tables have their own specific structure and store various information such as user_id, user_ip, status, date_time, etc.
Advantages of Optimizing Database
WordPress MySQL optimization has its advantages.
Less Clutter More Space
When unwanted data and tables are removed within the database, things get more organized and less cluttered. This also gives you additional space in your valuable database memory which can be utilized for more productive tasks in the future.
Performance
Well managed and clean database contribute to overall performance. Queries run through the database fetch data quicker and enhance the overall response time of your website.
Enhanced User Experience
WordPress optimized database improves the performance and speed of the website which ultimately leads to the enhanced user experience. Users may find your site more responsive.
WP ULike Features to Optimize Database Tables
Over the past few months, many users have asked us to add a feature that makes it easier to manage and optimize database tables.
So we started working and added this feature to the PRO version in the past few weeks. Like the image below, this panel is located in the “Developer Tools” section, and with its various options, you can manage your database tables with just one click.
This is just the beginning! As we have always promised, we strive to make the WP ULike plugin the most comprehensive tool for your website. The Pro version is being developed day by day, and we will soon add great features to this panel.
How to Manually Optimize and Repair Your Database
phpMyAdmin is the most common way to manage a WordPress database. If you are not using cPanel as your hosting control panel, your hosting plan may be using a different MySQL management tool to phpMyAdmin. Do not be too concerned about this as most database management tools have a similar interface and work in the same way.
You can also manage your WordPress database using a plugin such as WP-Optimize. Although a database WordPress plugin can make accessing your database simpler, I would advise against managing your database in this manner as it is a large security risk. If you have a plugin such as WP-Optimize installed and an unauthorized person gained access to your database, they could do anything they wanted to your website.
The easiest way to optimize tables
If you check your database, you will see two columns at the end: size and overhead. The size of a table depends on the amount of data that is stored in it. If more rows are stored in a table, the size of the table increases.
Overhead is a temporary disk space that is used by your database to store queries. Over time, a table’s overhead will increase.
It is perfectly normal to have overhead in your WordPress database and it should not affect performance unless overhead gets high.
You can optimize tables that are affected by overhead by using the SQL command OPTIMIZE TABLE. For example, you could optimize the wp_ulike table by executing this SQL query:
OPTIMIZE TABLE 'wp_ulike'
There is no need to use an SQL command as phpMyAdmin allows you to optimize tables from the main drop-down menu. All you need to do to optimize your database is click on the “Check All” box, select “Optimize table” from the dropdown menu, and then click on the “Go” button.
Once you have optimized your WordPress database, phpMyAdmin will confirm that your tables have been optimized.
* Another useful option you should keep in mind for the the future is
“Repair table”. Repairing a table will help you fix a table that has become corrupted.
More Questions? Ask here
Despite our best efforts, there will be bugs or issues with the WP ULike Optimizer tool so, please report these problems via the Support Service or comment area.
On the other hand, there is always room for improvement for us, and we will appreciate any suggestions and ideas to make our product better
