WP-Cron vs a real cron job explained

WordPress schedules tasks — publishing posts, checking updates, sending emails — using WP-Cron. Unlike a true system cron, WP-Cron only runs when someone visits your site. On quiet sites tasks can be late; on busy sites it can run too often and slow things down.

Better approach: disable WP-Cron’s visitor trigger and use a real server cron instead.

1. In wp-config.php add: define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);
2. In the DirhamHost control panel open Cron Jobs.
3. Add a job to run every 5–15 minutes, for example:
   cd /home/user/public_html; php wp-cron.php
   or a wget/curl to https://yourbusiness.ae/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron.

This makes scheduled tasks reliable and reduces load, which keeps your site fast on our NVMe servers — especially useful for WooCommerce, newsletters and backups.

Choose an interval that matches your needs: every 5 minutes for shops, every 15 for simple sites. Not comfortable editing files? Send us your setup on WhatsApp +971 58 553 6767 and we will add the cron job for you.