In this short video, we walk you through the process of setting up server-based CRON jobs on WPAlpha hosting. Cron jobs are scheduled WordPress jobs that work in the background doing various tasks like sending emails, clearing caches, building caches, and generally keeping your WordPress site healthy.
On bigger and busier sites, the WP-CRON can cause speed issues with the backend, with your WooCommerce cart, checkout,t and My Account area – basically any area that is relying on the server processing the request may run slower with the inbuilt WP-CRON. This is because, by default, the WP-CRON runs on EVERY page load.
The problem with that is that sometimes, this WP-CRON worker needs 20-30 seconds to process its work queue which means that page load for the user will take 20-30 seconds. By using a server-based CRON we disable this behavior and instead, the server runs the CRON job on a 30-minute schedule.