What You’ll Learn
- Installing and configuring the Lighthouse add-on
- Running performance audits on child sites
- Getting your Google PageSpeed Insights API key
- Understanding Lighthouse scores and reports
Extension Add-on - This add-on provides standalone functionality within MainWP Dashboard. No third-party plugins required.
Install and Set MainWP Lighthouse Add-on
- After successful installation, proceed to the Lighthouse settings
-
Insert your Google PageSpeed Insights API key. If you don’t have it, see here how to get it.\
- Save Settings, and you are ready to audit your sites.
Audit Child Sites
Alternatively, you can use the Bulk Actions menu to audit only certain sites, or if needed use the Audit Site action from the site Action Menu to audit just one site.
Schedule Automated Audits
Locate the Automatically audit sites option and Enable it.
Locate the Automatically audit sites option and Enable it.
Locate the Automated audit frequency option and set how often you want to check your sites.
Locate the Automated audit frequency option and set how often you want to check your sites.
Locate the site and click the Lighthouse Report action from the Actions Menu
Locate the site you want to check in the list and click use the Lighthouse Report action from the Actions Menu\
Widgets and Manage Sites table information
You can enable Performance Score columns (Desktop and Mobile) for the Manage Sites table from the Page Settings menu.
Lighthouse Settings
- Google PageSpeed Insights API key - In order to run audits, you need to enter your Google PageSpeed API key, if you don’t have it, see here how to get it.
- Language - Select language for Lighthouse reports.
- Strategy - Select if you want to get reports for Desktop, Mobile, or Both versions of sites.
- Notifications threshold - Set the threshold for notifications. If the score goes under the set value, the add-on will notify you.
- Automatically audit sites - If you want the add-on to automatically run audits, enable this feature.
- Automated audit frequency - If automated audits are enabled, here you can set how often you want them to run.
- Maximum execution time - Change the Max execution time if needed. If the Lighthouse reports are not being completed, increasing this value may help.
- Maximum script run time - Change the Max script run time if needed. If your scans do not finish completely and changing the Maximum Execution Time does not help, increase this value until you find the maximum allowed runtime.
- Throttling delay time - Change the Throttling delay time. Increasing this value may slow down Lighthouse reporting, but may help provide more accurate reports on poorly performing web servers.
Audit Sites via WP CLI
Scan one or multiple sites: wp mainwp-lighthouse audit 125,126 or all wp mainwp-lighthouse audit —allLighthouse REST API
All MainWP REST API calls, including full documentation, and examples, are now publicly available on Postman. Please refer to our REST API documentation for more details on enabling REST API and managing API keys.Get the Google PageSpeed Insights API Key
Navigate to https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/v5/get-started and click Get a Key button
Navigate to https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/v5/get-started and click Get a Key button\
Select existing or Create a new project and click Next
Select existing or Create a new project and click Next
Related Resources
- Monitoring Add-ons - Browse all monitoring tools
- Cache Control - Performance optimization
- WP Rocket Extension - Advanced caching tools