If you’re looking to improve the performance of your website, one of the first places you should look is your .htaccess file. By making a few simple tweaks to this file, you can dramatically improve the speed and responsiveness of your site.
One of the most important things you can do is enable caching. Caching allows your server to save a copy of your website’s files, so that they don’t have to be re-loaded every time a visitor comes to your site. This can drastically reduce the amount of time it takes for your pages to load.
To enable caching, simply add the following lines to your .htaccess file:
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/png “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType text/css “access plus 1 week”
ExpiresByType application/javascript “access plus 1 week”
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript “access plus 1 week”
ExpiresDefault “access plus 1 week”
Another great way to improve the performance of your site is to enable Gzip compression. Gzip is a software program that compresses files so that they take up less space on your server. This means that your pages will load faster, because the server doesn’t have to send as much data.
To enable Gzip compression, simply add the following lines to your .htaccess file:
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript
Enabling Gzip compression can reduce the size of your pages by up to 70%, so it’s definitely worth doing.
Finally, you should also make sure that you’re using the latest version of the Apache web server. The Apache team regularly releases new versions of their software, which includes performance improvements and security fixes. So it’s important to keep your server up-to-date.
To check which version of Apache you’re running, simply look at the “Server” header in the HTTP response from your server. For example, if the header says “Server: Apache/2.4.7” then you’re running Apache version 2.4.7.
You can find out the latest version of Apache from the Apache website (http://httpd.apache.org/). At the time of writing, the latest stable version is 2.4.33.
To upgrade to the latest version of Apache, simply download the latest release from the Apache website and follow the instructions in the INSTALL file.
Making these simple changes to your .htaccess file can have a big impact on the performance of your website. So if you’re looking to speed up your site, be sure to give these tips a try.