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Running WordPress Cron Job When Site Activity Is Less

Last updated on October 5, 2023

If you are working with WordPress cron job, you need to understand it is not a guaranteed timing mechanism. Wp-cron fires based on site activity. If you have a job set to fire every ten minutes, but nobody visits your site for an hour, then the job doesn’t fire for an hour. As a solution to this, we can either use server cron or resolve the issue using the following methods.

  • Via wp-config.php
  • Via cPanel
  • 3rd Party Cron Job Set Up

Method 1: Via wp-config.php

If you have a lesser number of visits per day and you are using wp-cron to do some scheduled tasks, you can add below line in your wp-config.php to fire Cron.

define('ALTERNATE_WP_CRON', true);

This method uses a redirection approach, which makes the user’s browser get a redirect when the cron needs to run so that they come back to the site immediately while cron continues to run in the connection they just dropped.

Method 2: Via cPanel

You can set Cron Job with help of your hosting providers cPanel tool as shown below:

Set up Cron cPanel

Alternate Options – 3rd Party Cron Job Set Up

If you find WordPress Cron is not efficient enough, there are 3rd Party options available that will take care of setting up a Cron job as per your business case. EasyCron is one of the easiest options available.