[SOLVED] HTTP compression - yay or nay?

aso186 · Jan 20th, 2008, 18:15

I'm trying out

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml

on Apache/2.0.55 (Red Hat), testing out the differences and such.

Just wondered if anyone else uses HTTP compression, and is the method above a good one? I know you can add browser conditions and also compress files other than html.

Plus can spiders handle HTTP compression? As in will this affect their ability to crawl my pages? Only since if certain browsers can't handle it, I wondered if spiders couldn't either...

Any tips appreciated

Alex

alexgeek · Jan 20th, 2008, 18:19

It depends whether you want performance or page size to be the priority.
I think high compression on pages can over work the server.

aso186 · Jan 20th, 2008, 18:24

I did consider this. I guess I could just compress my HTML, but I'm being picky anyway.

I think I'll just take it off

What do you think about spiders and HTTP compression though?

alexgeek · Jan 20th, 2008, 18:30

It doesn't actually change the code does it? So I don't see how it would affect spiders.

aso186 · Jan 20th, 2008, 18:56

Well, only that I know some older browsers can't handle compression - so by that I presume they just see garbled code? In which case, would a spider too?

What I don't know is, are you supposed to serve spiders uncompressed content or do spiders handle compressed content?

spinal007 · Jan 20th, 2008, 19:21

I don't know about the method your using, or Apache for that matter, but I know that HTTP Compression is amazing and makes a huge difference. Even a simple HTML page can be around 10 times smaller with HTTP Compression (gZip). Not to mention it speeds up your website (less stuff to download) from a visitor's point of view....

@lun · Jan 21st, 2008, 11:01

This article seems to explain it a bit more in depth: http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials...le.php/3514866

Though it mentions potential downsides, such as the fact that compressed pages have to be decompressed by the user's computer, which in some cases could counter any speed benefits that an end user would receive, it could make it even slower if the user's computer has limited processing power.

spinal007 · Jan 21st, 2008, 12:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by @lun

Though it mentions potential downsides, such as the fact that compressed pages have to be decompressed by the user's computer, which in some cases could counter any speed benefits that an end user would receive, it could make it even slower if the user's computer has limited processing power.

I think in today's world, the amount of processing power required to decompress a few kilobytes of data is negligible...

aso186 · Jan 21st, 2008, 13:40

Thanks for the feedback. I think spinal007 has a point about processing power these days. @lun, that link was a good read btw