## General: optimization Product: Verba - Modern Blog & Magazine WordPress Theme URL: https://hub.jkdevstudio.com/docs/verba/theme-settings/to-optimization Updated: 2026-09-09 Summary: The Optimization tab in Verba Theme Options: the automatic H1, where breadcrumbs come from, and the toggles that stop WordPress loading things you do not use. Availability: Pro only. [[Verba > Theme Options > General > Optimization]] covers three things: document structure, where the breadcrumb trail comes from, and cleaning up what WordPress loads on every page. ## Headings :::options - **Automatic H1 fallback** (default: on): Gives a page with no visible title a hidden H1, so every page has exactly one. ::: Every page is supposed to have one top-level heading. It describes the document to browsers, to screen readers, and to anything else reading the structure rather than the design. A page built entirely out of sections can easily end up with none, or with three. Turn it off only when something else already places the H1, for example a page built in Elementor with its own heading widget at the top. ## Breadcrumbs Only one setting lives here: where the trail comes from. :::options - **Source** (default: built-in): What builds the breadcrumb trail. The theme mechanism, or an active SEO plugin. Plugin options appear in the list once one of them is installed. - **Show on phones** (default: on): Keeps the trail visible on narrow screens. - **Override breadcrumb styles** (default: on): Paints plugin breadcrumbs like the rest of the theme. Only shown when the source is a plugin. ::: Everything else about breadcrumbs, meaning turning them on at all, the separator, the home link, and trimming long trails, is in [[Appearance > Customize > General > Breadcrumbs]]. The panel says so and links you there. This is the clearest example of a rule the settings follow throughout: one thing, one owner. Breadcrumbs belong to the free theme, so their visibility stays in the Customizer, and only the part that needs Pro, reading a trail out of an SEO plugin, sits here.
On a phone the trail takes a whole line above the title and adds very little. Turning it off there is a reasonable default, not a compromise.
## Performance Each toggle removes something WordPress adds to every page whether you use it or not. Removing them will not transform a slow site, but there is no reason to ship code nobody asked for. :::options - **Disable emoji scripts** (default: on): Drops the emoji detection script and styles. Emoji you type still display, because browsers render them natively. - **Disable embed script** (default: on): Drops the script that lets other WordPress sites embed your posts in a card. Embeds you paste into your own posts still work. - **Disable jQuery Migrate** (default: on): Removes the compatibility shim for jQuery code written years ago. - **Clean up head** (default: on): Removes rarely used tags WordPress puts in the document head. - **Remove feed links** (default: off): Removes the RSS and Atom link tags from the head. The feeds themselves stay reachable at their URLs, so subscribers are not cut off. - **Disable jQuery on the front end** (default: off): Stops loading jQuery entirely. :::
The last one is the only risky switch on this page. Plenty of plugins still expect jQuery on the front end, and when it is missing they fail silently: a slider stops sliding, a form stops submitting. Turn it on, then click through your site with the browser console open and look for errors before you leave it on.
## What this is not This is basic hygiene, not a performance strategy. If your pages are slow, the causes are almost always elsewhere: no page cache, oversized images, a slow host, or a stack of third-party scripts. Those are covered in the performance tutorial.
Will removing feed links break RSS subscribers? No. The feed URLs still work; readers that already know them keep working. What disappears is the automatic discovery tag, so a browser or reader can no longer find the feed on its own.
How do I know if a plugin needs jQuery? Turn the jQuery toggle on, open a page that uses the plugin, and check the browser console. `$ is not defined` or `jQuery is not defined` is the answer. Test the pages with sliders, forms, and popups, since those are the common users.
Do I still need an SEO plugin with these settings on? Yes, if you want control over titles, descriptions, and sitemaps. These settings handle document structure and cleanup, not metadata.