A slow website can create a lot of problems. It can drive away potential visitors and customers, hurt your site\u2019s User Experience (UX), and even impact your reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Decreasing the size of your website\u2019s pages is key to improving load speeds. Fortunately, GZIP compression is a great method for achieving fast page loading and file size reduction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this guide, we\u2019ll look at the basics of GZIP compression, including what it is and what it does. We\u2019ll then detail how to enable GZIP compression on a WordPress website. Let\u2019s jump right in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
GZIP compression is a type of data compression similar to ZIP and RAR. It can be used to compress all the files on your website, whether they’re text, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or XML.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GZIP compression occurs before files are served to your visitors\u2019 web browsers. Through this method, GZIP compression reduces the file sizes, which can have a positive effect on website loading times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When a visitor lands on your website, their browser requests the site\u2019s files from its server. Your server will compress those files before sending them to the browser. GZIP compression is one method of file compression amongst others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compressed files transfer faster than uncompressed files do. This helps to improve website performance and loading speeds \u2013 and as a result, Search Engine Optimization (SEO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GZIP compression is popular, and many WordPress hosting platforms<\/a> enable it by default. If you are unsure how to check if GZIP compression is working on your site, you can test for it using third-party solutions or in-browser developer tools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you do not have GZIP compression enabled, you will generally see warnings in tools such as GTmetrix<\/a>. You can also use a GZIP compression tool<\/a> to see whether your website is using GZIP compression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is also possible to check if GZIP compression is working by using browser developer tools. When enabled, the response header will include \u201ccontent-encoding: gzip\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To find the response header in Chrome, you will need to open DevTools<\/a> and navigate to Network<\/em>, then reload the page. Click on the name that matches your website, and the response header will open up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All websites on WP Engine use GZIP compression<\/a> as a default. All static files including text files, images, CSS, and JavaScript are automatically compressed for optimal website performance. This automatic compression reduces the need for GZIP directives in your .htaccess<\/em> file. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, not all WordPress websites are hosted on WP Engine, and will not benefit from the default enabling of GZIP compression. If your website is hosted on a different platform, you may need to enable GZIP compression manually. There are several ways to do this, which we\u2019ll look at next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest way to enable GZIP compression is to use a caching plugin. Tools such as WP Rocket<\/a> enable compression by adding code to your .htaccess<\/em> file for you, while others such as W3 Total Cache<\/a> will require you to manually add that code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While this is generally the simplest method of adding GZIP compression, it does involve adding an extra plugin to your site. If you\u2019re trying to keep your plugin library lean, you can use one of the following solutions instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your website uses Nginx, there is a code snippet<\/a> you can use to enable GZIP compression. You need to place the code snippet below in your site\u2019s nginx.conf<\/em> file, in the \u201chttp\u201d section. You can also place this code snippet in the server or location configuration block, but the http section is generally recommended:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you\u2019ve saved and closed the file, you will need to restart Nginx. To do so, use the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the restart, check to make sure that GZIP compression is active, using the methods previously detailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your web host uses Apache, you will need to edit the .htaccess<\/em> file to enable GZIP compression. This file can be found in the root directory of your WordPress installation, via File Transfer Protocol (FTP)<\/a> or your file manager. Most WordPress GZIP compression methods will require editing the .htaccess<\/em> file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two Apache mods you can use to enable GZIP, but mod_deflate<\/em><\/a> is the most widely-supported and best-documented option. To enable mod_deflate<\/em>, add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To enable mod_gzip<\/em> instead, add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before using either mod, you need to make a backup of your .htaccess<\/em> file and ensure that the module mod_filter<\/em> is on your server, or a 500 error may occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reducing the size of your website\u2019s pages can reduce loading times<\/a> and boost overall performance. GZIP compression can enable this reduction, but only when it is enabled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, here at WP Engine we enable GZIP compression<\/a> by default. What\u2019s more, we offer outstanding resources to help you learn how to build an outstanding digital experience<\/a> for your visitors!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A slow website can create a lot of problems. It can drive away potential visitors and customers, hurt your site\u2019s User Experience (UX), and even impact your reputation. Decreasing the size of your website\u2019s pages is key to improving load speeds. Fortunately, GZIP compression is a great method for achieving fast page loading and file…<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145791,"template":"","resource-topic":[912],"resource-role":[896,1296,899],"resource-type":[916],"class_list":["post-103007","resource","type-resource","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Enable GZIP Compression on WordPress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Enable GZIP Compression with a Plugin<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Enable GZIP Compression for Nginx<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
gzip on;
gzip_types text\/plain text\/css text\/javascript image\/svg+xml image\/x-icon application\/javascript application\/x-javascript;
gzip_min_length 1000;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_proxied no-cache no-store private expired auth;
gzip_diable \u201cMSIE [1-6];<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nsudo service nginx restart<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nEnable GZIP Compression for Apache (By Editing the .htaccess File)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
# Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts
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
# Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers)
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
<\/IfModule><\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n<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 mime ^application\/x-javascript.*
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text\/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image\/.*
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
<\/ifModule><\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nKeep Learning with WP Engine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n