Jetpack Boost Cornerstone Pages

Improve your site’s speed by optimizing its most important pages with the Cornerstone Pages setting.

Cornerstone pages are specific pages on your website that Jetpack Boost prioritises. It applies tailored optimizations to improve these pages’ performance rather than making broad changes across the entire site.

This setting is available on both the Boost free plan and the Boost Premium plan: the free plan allows you to optimize one page, while the Premium plan supports up to ten pages.

Read more about Jetpack Boost plans.

Cornerstone Pages usage

The Cornerstone Pages setting is automatically enabled once you activate Boost. You can find it below the Page Speed scores section, right above all of Boost’s features.

The box including all the Cornerstone Pages information is collapsed by default, and it shows the number of pages you currently have set up.

Clicking the arrow pointing down will expand the section, giving you more details about the preferences, including a way to manage the list of pages.

Default pages

When you activate Boost, it will populate the Cornerstone Pages list with the following URLs:

• Your home page;
• Your shop page if you have a WooCommerce store;
• Any page marked as Cornerstone Content from Yoast – that’s the case if you have pages tagged as Cornerstone Pages in your Yoast plugin settings.

The list is limited to the number of pages available in your Boost plan.

Edit the list of pages

When adding new URLs in Cornerstone Pages, you can enter a full URL (https://example.com/shop/) or a relative URL (/shop/).

If you provide a relative URL (/shop/), Boost will expand that for you to a full URL – https://example.com/shop/

Jetpack Boost stores relative URLs for the Cornerstone Pages in the database. If your website runs on multiple domains, your URLs will automatically show the current domain in the list.

If you migrate to another domain, you won’t have to update the Cornerstone Pages list – Boost will handle it for you.

Please note that only URLs from the same domain are allowed.

If you load the default pages, you will have to manually save the URLs you added to the list by clicking the Save button.

Trailing slashes

All URLs in the list will be displayed without a trailing slash; even if you add one, Boost will remove it automatically, as the system handles slashes.

When saving the values in the database, a trailing slash will either be added or removed based on your website’s permalink structure.

Removing all pages from the list

You can remove one or more URLs from the list or all of them, then click the Save button to validate the changes. Removing all pages from the list and saving them will automatically add the home page to the list.

If you leave the Cornerstone Pages list empty, the system will consider your homepage a default page to flag and automatically list it there.

Cornerstone Pages benefits for Boost features

The Cornerstone Pages settings can positively influence active Boost features.

Page Speed scores

Previously, Boost calculated your site’s mobile and desktop scores based on the home page. Now, with the introduction of Cornerstone Pages, Page Speed scores are determined using the first page listed in your Cornerstone Pages.

This means you can now change how the Page Speed scores for your site are measured by managing the first page in the Cornerstone Pages list.

Critical CSS

When generating Critical CSS, Cornerstone Pages will have their version explicitly tailored to them, rather than the generic critical CSS generated for a group of pages.

For example, if the “About” page on your website has a unique look – different from the rest of the pages on your website – adding it to the Cornerstone Pages list will have Boost generate a Critical CSS specifically for that page’s layout.

Previously, Boost would have generated one Critical CSS that respects both layouts, which meant a wider chunk of CSS on the page.

Troubleshooting the Cornerstone Pages errors

Boost does not allow the list to be updated if there are errors present, so if you encounter any of these errors, you need to correct them before saving any further changes.

A note on the “Experimental” note

We’re always looking for ways to improve a website’s performance, and Cornerstone Pages is part of this project.

Cornerstone Pages are currently in an experimental phase, meaning this feature may be discontinued if it does not achieve the desired impact.

Your feedback is invaluable in helping us improve Boost. If you have feedback about Cornerstone Pages, please don’t hesitate to share it with us!