Easy way to speed up your website

Nginx config file for this site didn't have gzip compression enabled. I copied the default file from here Recipes Drupal updated server_name and site path, and never bothered to check if compression is enabled or not.

As soon as I was aware of this, I decided to do a little test. I checked the page speed of my site by using the Google PageSpeed Insights tool. These are the results without gzip compression enabled.

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After doing this initial speed test I update the nginx config file. I added the following lines:

gzip on;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_min_length 1000;
gzip_proxied expired no-cache no-store private auth;
gzip_types text/plain application/javascript application/x-javascript text/javascript text/xml text/css;

These are the speed results with compression enabled.

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Nice! Adding just 5 lines of code to my nginx config file increased the page load time by 48% on mobile, and 10% on desktop.

Btw, this is where I added those lines. Just beneath the path reference.

server {
  server_name gorannikolovski.com;
  root /var/www/gorannikolovski.com/web; ## <-- Your only path reference.

  gzip on;
  gzip_vary on;
  gzip_min_length 1000;
  gzip_proxied expired no-cache no-store private auth;
  gzip_types text/plain text/css text/xml text/javascript application/x-javascript application/xml;
  gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.";

  access_log /var/log/web/gorannikolovski.com_access_log;
  error_log /var/log/web/gorannikolovski.com_error_log;

  location = /favicon.ico {
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
  }

  ...
  ...

}

Don't forget to restart the Nginx with this command after you update the file:

service nginx restart

It's not always necessary to get a better server if you are not happy with the site speed. Sometimes you just have to tweak the existing one to get better results.

About the Author

Goran Nikolovski is an experienced web and AI developer skilled in Drupal, React, and React Native. He founded this website and enjoys sharing his knowledge.