Site Performance Enhancement
Enhance your site performance with these common practices derived from the web. See what are applicable to you and gain from the benefits.
These HTTP headers are an instruction to the client about the document's validity and persistence. If cached, the document may be fetched from the cache rather than from the source until this time has passed. After that, the cache copy is considered "expired" and invalid, and a new copy must be obtained from the source. Read more .
Some popular browsers cannot handle compression of all content so you may want to set the gzip-only-text/html note to 1 to only allow html files to be compressed (see below). If you set this to anything but 1 it will be ignored.
If you want to restrict the compression to particular MIME types in general, you may use the AddOutputFilterByType directive. Read more.
Specifically, we’re going to replace old-school image slicing and dicing (and the necessary JavaScript) with a CSS solution. And because of the way CSS works, we’re going to take it further: by building a grid of images and devising a way to get each individual cell out of the grid, we can store all buttons/navigation items/whatever we wish in a single master image file, along with the associated “before” and “after” link states. Read more.
The goal of JavaScript and CSS minification is always to preserve the operational qualities of the code while reducing its overall byte footprint (both in raw terms and after gzipping, as most JavaScript and CSS served from production web servers is gzipped as part of the HTTP protocol).
Many web servers can compress files in gzip format before sending them for download, either by calling a third-party module or using built-in routines. To enable compression, configure your web server to set the Content-Encoding header to gzip format for all compressible resources. You can also use deflate, which uses the same compression algorithms, but it is not widely used, so we recommend gzip. Read more.
Maximizing parallel downloads doesn’t come without a cost. Depending on your bandwidth and CPU speed, too many parallel downloads can degrade performance.
Increase the number of parallel downloads by using at least two, but no more than four hostnames. Once again, this underscores the number one rule for improving response times: reduce the number of components in the page. Read more.
- Use mod_pagespeed
- Use mod_expires
- Use mod_deflate
- Avoid .htaccess
- PHP ob_gzhandler
- Use CSS Sprites
- Combine and Minify
- Compress Components
- Compress Images
- Limit Cookies
- Parallel Downloads
Use mod_pagespeed
mod_pagespeed is an open-source Apache module that automatically optimizes web pages and resources on them. It does this by rewriting the resources using filters that implement web performance best practices. Webmasters and web developers can use mod_pagespeed to improve the performance of their web pages when serving content with the Apache HTTP Server. Read more.Use mod_expires
This module controls the setting of the Expires HTTP header and the max-age directive of the Cache-Control HTTP header in server responses. The expiration date can set to be relative to either the time the source file was last modified, or to the time of the client access.These HTTP headers are an instruction to the client about the document's validity and persistence. If cached, the document may be fetched from the cache rather than from the source until this time has passed. After that, the cache copy is considered "expired" and invalid, and a new copy must be obtained from the source. Read more .
Use mod_deflate
The mod_deflate module provides the DEFLATE output filter that allows output from your server to be compressed before being sent to the client over the network.Some popular browsers cannot handle compression of all content so you may want to set the gzip-only-text/html note to 1 to only allow html files to be compressed (see below). If you set this to anything but 1 it will be ignored.
If you want to restrict the compression to particular MIME types in general, you may use the AddOutputFilterByType directive. Read more.
Avoid .htaccess
You should avoid using .htaccess files completely if you have access to httpd main server config file. Using .htaccess files slows down your Apache server. Any directive that you can include in a .htaccess file is better set in a Directory block, as it will have the same effect with better performance. Read more.PHP ob_gzhandler
ob_gzhandler() is intended to be used as a callback function for ob_start() to help facilitate sending gz-encoded data to web browsers that support compressed web pages. Before ob_gzhandler() actually sends compressed data, it determines what type of content encoding the browser will accept ("gzip", "deflate" or none at all) and will return its output accordingly. All browsers are supported since it's up to the browser to send the correct header saying that it accepts compressed web pages. If a browser doesn't support compressed pages this function returns FALSE. Read more.Use CSS Sprites
CSS Sprites are the preferred method for reducing the number of image requests. Combine all the images in your page into a single image and use the CSS background-image and background-position properties to display the desired image segment. Read more.Specifically, we’re going to replace old-school image slicing and dicing (and the necessary JavaScript) with a CSS solution. And because of the way CSS works, we’re going to take it further: by building a grid of images and devising a way to get each individual cell out of the grid, we can store all buttons/navigation items/whatever we wish in a single master image file, along with the associated “before” and “after” link states. Read more.
Combine and Minify
Combine multiple CSS or Javascript files, remove unnecessary whitespace and comments, and serve them with gzip encoding and optimal client-side cache headers.The goal of JavaScript and CSS minification is always to preserve the operational qualities of the code while reducing its overall byte footprint (both in raw terms and after gzipping, as most JavaScript and CSS served from production web servers is gzipped as part of the HTTP protocol).
Compress Components
Compressing resources with gzip or deflate can reduce the number of bytes sent over the network.Many web servers can compress files in gzip format before sending them for download, either by calling a third-party module or using built-in routines. To enable compression, configure your web server to set the Content-Encoding header to gzip format for all compressible resources. You can also use deflate, which uses the same compression algorithms, but it is not widely used, so we recommend gzip. Read more.
Compress Images
You should perform both basic and advanced optimization on all images. Basic optimization includes cropping unnecessary space, reducing color depth to the lowest acceptable level, removing image comments, and saving the image to an appropriate format. You can perform basic optimization with any image editing program, such as GIMP. Advanced optimization involves further (lossless) compression of JPEG and PNG files. You should see a benefit for any image file that can be reduced by 25 bytes or more (less than this will not result in any appreciable performance gain). Read more.Limit Cookies
- Eliminate unnecessary cookies.
- Keep cookie sizes as low as possible to minimize the impact on the user response time.
- Be mindful of setting cookies at the appropriate domain level so other sub-domains are not affected.
- Set an Expires date appropriately. An earlier Expires date or none removes the cookie sooner, improving the user response time.
Parallel Downloads
Unfortunately, relying on your users to modify their browsers is not a reasonable optimization strategy, so what can the concerned developer do to tap into these gains? To improve performance, we created CNAMEs for images1.ajaxperformance.com, images2.ajaxperformance.com, and images3.ajaxperformance.com, all of which point back to our main host. Read more.Maximizing parallel downloads doesn’t come without a cost. Depending on your bandwidth and CPU speed, too many parallel downloads can degrade performance.
Increase the number of parallel downloads by using at least two, but no more than four hostnames. Once again, this underscores the number one rule for improving response times: reduce the number of components in the page. Read more.
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