Caching and gzip compression by htaccess

Question

Can someone provide me with an optimized .htaccess configuration that handles compression, browser caching, proxy caching, etc. for a typical website?

Aside from my

Answer 1

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 .htaccess article 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.

Answer 2

# 480 weeks
<FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=290304000, public"
</FilesMatch>

# 2 DAYS
<FilesMatch "\.(xml|txt)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=172800, public, must-revalidate"
</FilesMatch>

# 2 HOURS
<FilesMatch "\.(html|htm)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, must-revalidate"
</FilesMatch>

<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>

Answer 3

You should use following rule in your .htaccess file trust me it will increase minimum 10 points if you are not using this already.

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.*


AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
Header append Vary User-Agent


ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/html "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 1 month"

Answer 4

Try this:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    #The following line is enough for .js and .css
    AddOutputFilter DEFLATE js css
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain text/xml application/xhtml+xml text/css   application/xml application/rss+xml application/atom_xml application/x-javascript application/x-httpd-php application/x-httpd-fastphp text/html

    #The following lines are to avoid bugs with some browsers
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
    BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
</IfModule>

# BEGIN EXPIRES
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 days"
    ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 week"
    ExpiresByType text/plain "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 week"
    ExpiresByType application/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
</IfModule>
# END EXPIRES

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    <FilesMatch "\.(js|css|xml|gz)$">
        Header append Vary Accept-Encoding
    </FilesMatch>
    <FilesMatch "\.(ico|jpe?g|png|gif|swf)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "public"
    </FilesMatch>
    <FilesMatch "\.(css)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "public"
    </FilesMatch>
    <FilesMatch "\.(js)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "private"
    </FilesMatch>
    <FilesMatch "\.(x?html?|php)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "private, must-revalidate"
    </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

Answer 5

You can use the code as :-

<Files *>
    #Compress

    SetOutputFilter GZIP

    #Caching

    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=3600, public"


</Files>