About this plugin
Basic Optimization provides simple on/off controls for common WordPress cleanup and performance-related tweaks. It is intentionally small, dependency-free, and designed for site owners who want practical optimization controls without a large performance suite.
The plugin adds a Basic Optimization admin screen where administrators can enable or disable each feature independently. It also includes a child Email Notifications settings page for disabling selected WordPress core auto emails.
Basic Optimization supports regular single-site WordPress installs and WordPress Multisite. On multisite, when the plugin is network activated, Super Admins configure the plugin only from Network Admin and all sites use the network settings.
Features
- Multisite Support – Adds Network Admin settings pages and stores network-wide settings with WordPress network options.
- Network-Only Mode – When network activated, subsite admin pages are not added and every site uses the Network Admin settings.
- Disable Emojis – Removes WordPress emoji scripts, styles, filters, and emoji DNS prefetch output.
- Remove Shortlink – Removes the shortlink tag from the document head.
- Remove CSS/JS Version – Removes the ver query argument from enqueued stylesheet and script URLs.
- Remove RSD Links – Removes the Really Simple Discovery link from the document head.
- Disable Embeds – Removes WordPress oEmbed discovery links and dequeues the default wp-embed frontend script.
- Disable XML-RPC – Disables XML-RPC requests and removes the X-Pingback response header.
- Remove WLW Manifest Link – Removes the Windows Live Writer manifest link from the document head.
- Disable Self Pingback – Prevents self pingbacks when content links to the same site.
- Hide WordPress Version – Removes the WordPress generator meta tag from the document head.
- Disable Heartbeat – Deregisters the WordPress heartbeat script on the frontend.
- Email Notifications – Adds dropdown controls to disable selected WordPress core auto emails, including new user registration, password changed, comment moderation, and automatically approved comment notifications.
Multisite Behavior
On a multisite network, the plugin can be network activated. When network activated, only the Network Admin settings pages are shown. Subsite admin pages are not added, and all sites use the network-level settings.
Network settings are available under Network Admin > Basic Optimization. Subsite dashboards do not receive a Basic Optimization admin menu while the plugin is network activated.
Notes
Some features can affect integrations that rely on WordPress defaults. For example, disabling XML-RPC can affect external publishing clients and services that still depend on XML-RPC. Disabling auto emails can also affect administrator awareness of user and comment activity.
Disable only the features that match your site requirements.