Cache & Compress Your WordPress Site Without a Plugin

Ciprian on Friday, September 28, 2018 in Blog
Last modified on Friday, June 24, 2022

WordPress speed, if configured correctly.

WordPress caching and compression is mostly common sense. If you have a powerful caching solution on your server, and you take advantage of the browser caching, you are all set, and you don’t need the overhead of a caching plugin.

Here’s what you need: OPcache or Varnish on the server. Or APC or XCache. It doesn’t matter. I won’t go into any detail on these because they are outside the scope of this article.

Next, you need several lines of code for your Apache or Nginx configuration files:

For Apache:

# Cache
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType text/xml "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/xhtml+xml "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/xml "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/json "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/rss+xml "access plus 1 hour"
    ExpiresByType application/atom+xml "access plus 1 hour"
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff2 "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/ogg "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType audio/ogg "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/mp4 "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/webm "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 6 month"
    ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 6 month"
    ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 6 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 6 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 week"
    ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 week"

    # Webfonts
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType font/opentype "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 month"
</IfModule>

# Headers
Header unset ETag
FileETag None
<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>

# GZip Compression
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript text/javascript font/opentype application/rss+xml application/json
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
    BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
    SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary
    Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
</IfModule>

For Nginx:

# Expire rules for static content

# cache.appcache, your document html and data
location ~* \.(?:manifest|appcache|html?|xml|json)$ {
    expires -1;
    access_log off;
}

# Feed
location ~* \.(?:rss|atom)$ {
    expires 1h;
    add_header Cache-Control "public";
}

# Media: images, icons, video, audio, HTC
location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|cur|gz|svg|svgz|mp4|ogg|ogv|webm|htc)$ {
    expires 1M;
    access_log off;
    add_header Cache-Control "public";
}

# CSS and Javascript
location ~* \.(?:css|js)$ {
    expires 1y;
    access_log off;
    add_header Cache-Control "public";
}

That’s it. Don’t forget to measure your site’s speed before and after implementing the solutions above.

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