Gzip compression

• Gzip is a method of compressing files (making them smaller) for faster network transfers.
• It is also a file format.
  Compression allows your web server to provide smaller file sizes which load faster for your website users.

Enabling gzip compression is a standard practice. If you are not using it for some reason, your webpages are likely slower than your competitors.

How to enable Gzip compression

• Compression is enabled via webserver configuration
• Different web servers have different instructions (explained below)

Here are the most common ways to enable compression including .htaccess

Enable compression via .htaccess

For most people reading this, compression is enabled by adding some code to a file called .htaccess on their web host/server. This means going to the file manager (or wherever you go to add or upload files) on your webhost.

The .htaccess file controls many important things for your site. If you are not familiar with the .htaccess file, please read my working with .htaccessarticle to get some know how before changing it.

The code below should be added to your .htaccess file...

<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>

Save the .htaccess file and then refresh your webpage.

Check to see if your compression is working using the Gzip compression tool.

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