This Boosted Page Loads Dramatically

After installing the Newspaper theme I found my load times for the landing page were at least 24-seconds and went as high as 40-seconds. That’s just unacceptable. So, I did some digging online for .htaccess tricks to decrease load time. Now my landing page load time is 4-seconds or less. Target pages are 3-4 seconds, and back to the main landing page from another page is 2-3 seconds. I’d still like to shave off another second or two, but it’s a far cry better than what I had before.

Pasted here is the total code I put into my .htaccess file. The impact was immediate and I’m very pleased. I thought others might find this useful. See below.

Blessings,
Tom Terry
—–

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /wp/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /wp/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
<filesMatch “\.(js|css|html|php)$”>
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
</filesMatch>
</IfModule>

# BEGIN Expire headers
<ifModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault “access plus 5 seconds”
ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType image/png “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType text/css “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType text/javascript “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType application/javascript “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType application/x-font-svg “access plus 604800 seconds”
ExpiresByType image/svg+xml “access plus 604800 seconds”
</ifModule>
# END Expire headers

# TN START GZIP COMPRESSION
<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>
# TN END GZIP COMPRESSION

# TN START DEFLATE COMPRESSION
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE “application/atom+xml” \
“application/javascript” \
“application/json” \
“application/ld+json” \
“application/manifest+json” \
“application/rdf+xml” \
“application/rss+xml” \
“application/schema+json” \
“application/vnd.geo+json” \
“application/vnd.ms-fontobject” \
“application/x-font” \
“application/x-font-opentype” \
“application/x-font-otf” \
“application/x-font-truetype” \
“application/x-font-ttf” \
“application/x-javascript” \
“application/x-web-app-manifest+json” \
“application/xhtml+xml” \
“application/xml” \
“font/eot” \
“font/otf” \
“font/ttf” \
“font/opentype” \
“image/bmp” \
“image/svg+xml” \
“image/vnd.microsoft.icon” \
“image/x-icon” \
“text/cache-manifest” \
“text/css” \
“text/html” \
“text/javascript” \
“text/plain” \
“text/vcard” \
“text/vnd.rim.location.xloc” \
“text/vtt” \
“text/x-component” \
“text/x-cross-domain-policy” \
“text/xml”
</IfModule>
# END DEFLATE COMPRESSION

# TN START ENABLE KEEP ALIVE
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Connection keep-alive
</ifModule>
# TN END ENABLE KEEP ALIVE

# TN – START EXPIRES CACHING #
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/html “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/svg+xml “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType audio/ogg “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType video/mp4 “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType video/ogg “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType video/webm “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType application/atom+xml “access plus 1 hour”
ExpiresByType application/rss+xml “access plus 1 hour”
ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/javascript “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/x-component “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType font/opentype “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/font-woff “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/font-woff2 “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresDefault “access 1 month”
</IfModule>
# TN – END EXPIRES CACHING #

# TN – BEGIN Cache-Control Headers
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
<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>
# TN – END Cache-Control Headers

# TN – ENABLE MOD PAGESPEED START
# COMBINE CSS, COMPRESS IMAGES, REMOVE HTML WHITE SPACE AND COMMENTS
<IfModule pagespeed_module>
ModPagespeed on
ModPagespeedEnableFilters rewrite_css,combine_css
ModPagespeedEnableFilters recompress_images
ModPagespeedEnableFilters convert_png_to_jpeg,convert_jpeg_to_webp
ModPagespeedEnableFilters collapse_whitespace,remove_comments
</IfModule>
# TN – ENABLE MOD PAGESPEED END

# END WordPress