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WP Engine Hosting

The Dealers Site is hosted on WP Engine, a premium managed WordPress hosting platform designed for high-availability WordPress applications.

Key WP Engine Features​

Managed Infrastructure​

  • PHP version configurable per environment (currently PHP 8.1+)
  • Nginx web server with WordPress-optimised configuration
  • MySQL managed database with daily automated backups
  • SSL/TLS via WP Engine's managed certificates (Let's Encrypt)

Performance​

  • EverCache — WP Engine's page caching layer; automatically purged on content updates
  • Built-in CDN — static assets served from WP Engine's global CDN network
  • Gzip compression — enabled by default

Security​

  • WP Engine firewall — blocks common WordPress attack patterns
  • DDoS protection
  • Malware scanning — automated scans with alerts

Developer Tools​

  • Git push deployment — deploy directly via git push wpengine main
  • SSH gateway — secure terminal access for WP-CLI
  • SFTP — for direct file management
  • WP-CLI access via SSH
  • Staging environments — fully isolated copy of production

Staging Workflow​

  1. From WP Engine portal: Copy Production → Staging (resets staging DB and files from production).
  2. Make and test changes on staging.
  3. From WP Engine portal: Push Staging → Production.
warning

Pushing staging to production overwrites the production database. Always back up first and confirm the content team is aware.

Caching Considerations​

WP Engine's EverCache caches full HTML pages. This means:

  • Logged-out dealers see cached pages; logged-in dealers bypass cache.
  • After deploying code, flush the cache via WP Engine portal → Purge All Caches.
  • Use WP-CLI: wp cache flush for object cache.
  • Algolia-powered product pages load pricing from Algolia JS client-side, so stale HTML does not cause stale prices.